


Cold Courage

by Darkarashi



Series: The Courage and The Cold [3]
Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe-ish, Angst, Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Post-TDW, Post-Winter Soldier, True Love's Kiss, no one really stays dead though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-03
Updated: 2017-10-27
Packaged: 2018-02-23 23:12:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 39
Words: 124,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2559290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkarashi/pseuds/Darkarashi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Keshaara, Dovahkiin and Hero...has lost everything. There is nothing left for her in Asgard but pain, and she does not wish to be in pain any longer. Her mourning will take the rest of her life, she knows that. She has lost all she could bring herself to care about, again. All is nothingness again, and she cannot bear the thought of living where Loki had once been now that he is gone from her. </p><p>So she seeks a new life, a way to start again. Skyrim is lost to her, the place she had once called home is gone, and she is left with the Nine Realms, and those Realms alone. It now becomes the question of what, and how, she will choose to live this new, lesser life of hers. </p><p>She is Dovahkiin. But she is tired.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Mourn

The Tale of the Dragonborn

* * *

For a long time, Keshaara said nothing. As soon as her wails of despair faded, as soon as she stopped screaming her denial of what had happened to her, she said nothing. The dragons withdrew from her, leaving her to the mourning of the Nords. Keshaara, eyes red and swollen, began the long watch after stealing her steel armor back. There was no one to defend anymore, and she was no one’s Champion. Her armor was her own again.

 The steel was a comforting, familiar weight. It was her armor, both physical and emotional. The Dovahkiin wore this steel, the Dovahkiin stood guard over the honored dead. The armor was painfully Nordic, etched with designs she had not seen since she had first come to Asgard. Had it been any other time that she had received this armor back, she perhaps would have felt the loss of her homeland, would have felt the pain of knowing she could not go back, would have started weeping for reasons other than knowing that she had again, been separated from her Alunsegein.

 As it was, that was what hurt more than anything.

 She had had him.

 She had _found him_.

 She had hoped for happiness and love and the things the bardic college never shut up about. She had hoped for the end to the destiny that had plagued her, in the gift of a name from a man who had no right to name anyone. It had been the greatest gift, to be named Golden Queen, Bearer of Courage, the Queen of Courage, however many iterations of her name that could arise from those three words in her name. It had been a gift befitting a Prince’s Consort, and Keshaara had rejoiced when she found that Loki had given it to her. To him, she had been a Queen. His Queen.

 And now she had a name and no one to share it with. The namer of her identity was gone, the one who had declared her Queen was gone and now her name, the name that had brought her such keen joy in the critical time of flux of her identity, meant nothing. She was nothing again. Her name was not a gift any longer, it was a curse. A reminder of what could have been.

 Destiny was always cruel to her. To give what she had wanted, to hand it to her with an open hand, and invite her to reach for something as glorious as a life free from the bounds of subservience to a cause she had no way to know of, and then to _snatch it away_ in the cruelest possible fashion, and leave her in misery.

 Silence was the watcher’s gift, she did not wail.

 There was no body to mourn over, no shroud to tear and stitch across her underclothes, to keep the last garb of the dead over your heart. She had no bastion of normalcy to fall to, and no mourning that could be done properly. The Asgardians did not commit their dead to mausoleums; they set them adrift over the waterfalls, and let them fall to nothingness. She had no carved relief over a tomb to kneel in front of and keen, there were no singers called to tell everyone Loki’s story, no one did anything. It was not…proper.

 So she chose to stand guard in front of his rooms. It was the closest thing she could find after the empty boat was sent over the edge of the world. The empty boat set free from an empty shoreline. No one came to mourn Loki. No one bothered. He had died, that was enough for them.

 Loki was dead.

 Asgard breathed easier, relaxing all at once, as if a great thorn had been removed from its side. They avoided her, and his rooms. No servants came by, no one spoke to her, no one looked at her. No one offered to stand with her, no one garbed themselves in armor and stood with her without asking. No one offered her a spear to lean on, or a consolation of any form.

 No, Loki was dead and Asgard rejoiced.

 Keshaara stood, still and speechless, allowing the pain and anger to bleed from her. The point of the Long Watch was to stand for a month in their memory, and at the end of the month, the pain was gone, and they were left only with the happy memories. That was the way it went. You had a month to feel your pain, to accept it and how it will change you, and then after that, there is no more pain. It is surrendered to the Divines, along with the one you stood watch for.

 So Keshaara stood.

 And waited.

 And watched.

 Her pain was her only companion. She would wait until the pain left her after the end of this month, and she would see what she could do to move on after that point.

 Keshaara went away within herself and stood. Nothing mattered but her mourning as she stood guard over Loki’s rooms. Nothing…mattered.

* * *

“…sh…”

She blinked. Her eyes felt painfully dry and gritty. Like she had fallen asleep face-first in a dune and did not wake up until days later. She was vaguely aware of her arms aching, but that was rather overshadowed by the pain just behind her sternum.

 “…Ke…ra.”

 Her shoulders ached. She had been wearing her armor for too long, it was likely there were sores. She could feel slickness on her skin, which told her much about how long she had been standing. Her hips ached something terribly, and the thought of trying to move nearly sent her tumbling to the floor. The physical pain reared its head, but the emotional trauma was still winning out. Physical pain should not still be present.

 “ _Ke…ara_.”

 Someone grabbed her by the forearm, shaking her vigorously. Keshaara blinked again, trying to clear her hazy vision. She had been staring into the mid-distance for so long that she could barely see. Light filtered into her field of vision, the more she blinked, the more she could see, and the shaking intensified. It was hard to focus, but she was trying to. Every time she blinked, more of her vision returned to her, but it was still hard to see.

 “Keshaara!”

 Another blink, and then the world crashed into existence around her. It was Fandral, almost nose-to-nose with her, pulling her from side to side to try and get her to wake up. Her ears felt like they were stuffed with cloth, and his words were muffled. She shuddered, trying to get herself to wake up back into her body, and fell backwards against the wall. Fandral rushed to help hold her up, shouting over his shoulder for help.

 Keshaara felt more hands on her, holding her up, pulling her away from the door. She felt far more exhausted than she ever remembered being, especially for something as easy as a month long mourning-fast. She had done this for her children, their spouses, her grandchildren, her husband and some of her treasured friends. Every time, she had spent the month mourning, and then come out of the trance on her own. Aching and weary, yes, but she had never felt like this.

 She felt raw and empty of all things except agony.

 Moving hurt.

 Breathing hurt.

 Thinking hurt.

 Keshaara looked up to Fandral, confused as to why he would interrupt her mourning like this. It was not right. Durnehviir and Odahviing should have told him about her need to mourn like this. They would have known that she was doing the right thing and should not be interrupted like this. Why was Fandral here? He should not be here, there were still days left in her mourning. She was not ready to be done with this yet.

 When she tried to speak, all that came out was a hoarse croak. She must have cried more than she had thought, to be so dehydrated so soon into her month of mourning. She should not be this week, her legs should not be giving out as easily as they did, but every step she tried to take sent jagged spikes of pain up her legs. Her joints creaked and snapped as she started walking with Fandral’s assistance.

 He slung one of her arms over his shoulders and supported her, helping her walk away from Loki’s rooms. Keshaara was not strong enough to resist, but she made token protestations as her feet twisted underneath her. Her armor felt like it did not quite fit her right anymore, which was odd because she had put it on but a few days ago and it had fit her as well as it had always done. Why was Fandral leading her away? Why did she feel so weak? Where was Durnehviir and Odahviing to tell him off for moving her?

 “Wh…why? Fandral, I should be standing guard…”

 Fandral did not reply, just stopped his forced march to stare at her for a long moment before starting again. He walked with purpose, pulling her along with him, back to her rooms. She stumbled and he caught her, holding her up like she weighed nothing. Keshaara objected, and was confused all over again. Her armor was heavy, and she was no feather-light woman, either. Even if Fandral had the uncommon strength of the Aesir, he should have had some struggle with carrying her around like this, but he _wasn’t._

 “Let…let me go back, I still have to stand guard. He’s…he…it’s not been a month. He needs someone to watch over him.”

 Nausea washed over her as Fandral spun her quickly, pushing her up against a pillar to hold her steady. **Anger** danced in his eyes, and Keshaara’s head swam as she tried to piece together what she had done to upset Fandral this severely.

 “Keshaara, you have been standing guard there for two and a half months already. The dragons would not let anyone move you, but you are wasting away. I am not going to let you die mourning him.”

 His words did not make sense, and Keshaara shook her head as he continued to speak.

 “No…no, Fandral, _stop_. It’s not been that long. We only mourn for a month. I…It can’t be that long.”

 The way Fandral looked at her made everything shatter all over again.

 “Fandral… _no_. No, please tell me you are exaggerating. It can’t…it _can’t_ , Fandral. I can’t still be…”

 “Keshaara…”

 “ _NO!_ ”

 She pushed him, her weakness apparent when her usually brutal shove barely made Fandral move at all. He covered her hands with his and looked at her sternly.

 “Keshaara, you need to stop. You’re going to waste away.”

 “No! No…no, I have to…it can’t be. You need to tell me truthfully, Fandral. How long have I been standing guard?”

 “I told you. Nearly two and a half months. You have not moved, or eaten, or drank anything. The servants have taken to calling you the weeping statue. No one could rouse you. I’ve been trying for days now, to get you to move. We are worried. You need to eat and sleep. The time for you to stand guard is done. No one has entered his rooms since you left them, but you cannot stand there forever.”

 Keshaara started to shake. She could feel it in her hands, her knees, her gut. Hunger came next, gnawing at her with such intensity that she nearly fell over. Her muscles ached, her body rebelled and Keshaara realized he had been telling the truth.

 “But…I still hurt. I still miss him. How can I still miss him after that long. We mourn for a month. Only for a month. I did not mourn my children for longer than that. Or my husband, or my dearest friend. Why…why do I still miss him?”

 Fandral had no words for her, merely reached out to her and pulled her close to him in a tight hug. It was hard to lift her arms to return the embrace, and Keshaara’s legs went out from underneath her anyway.

 The weight of feeling emotions as strongly as she was in that moment was more than enough to make her shudder in dismay, because one thing became very clear right then: she was never going to be free of her sadness. It was a part of her now. It would forever be a part of her. She would not be free, ever again. A name had been given to her, and it was a name she could do nothing with.

 Her King was gone.

* * *

Keshaara recovered slowly. Her mourning period had taxed her body to the limit, it seemed. Exhaustion was her companion, and she rankled at the presence of others. She would find ways to escape the palace and walk out far into the world of Asgard, only to return days or weeks later, scraped and bruised. When asked about her injuries, she would acknowledge the pain they caused her and heal them.

But she did not seek out anyone to talk with.

Sif, Fandral, Odahviing…they all sought her out, trying to bring her back into herself, trying to rouse her into action, to get her to spar, to think, to read or move or show signs of truly living, but they received nothing. Keshaara would awake, eat, and wait for nightfall, only to sleep again. She hardly moved, an eerie habit for those around her to observe in action.

 Dόmhildr, especially, found it hard to understand. Keshaara would sit very still on a chair on the porch she had, staring out into the distance without saying anything or acknowledging anyone around her. The dragons did not seem perturbed by it, merely sitting silently with her, watching everything Keshaara was not looking at, just in case danger came to her again.

 Dόmhildr turned to Durnehviir when she saw the dragon approaching Keshaara one day, the question burning her lips as she asked it. It seemed almost like a betrayal to ask about something so personal as one’s method of mourning, but she was Keshaara’s housecarl, and she needed to know.

 “It is an old…draconic relic,” Durnehviir explained, looking to Keshaara’s still form out on the balcony. “When we mourn, or when we have lost something, we sit stone-still. It is how we try and contemplate our loss. We…we cannot handle the loss of something as precious as what Keshaara has lost. Our souls are old, and there is only so much pain one of us can bear before it is too much. Keshaara may have hit that point now.”

 “But she is not a dragon, the Forge made her Aesir.”

 “No, the Forge did no such thing,” Durnehviir said sharply, looking down at Dόmhildr. “The forge approximated what she was, and gave me a form to work with. But Keshaara is still a dragon-soul. Her name is draconic, her soul is ancient. She is one of us, not one of your Aesir.”

 Dόmhildr looked from Keshaara to Durnehviir, and nodded in understanding. It was odd, but it was what it was.

* * *

  Keshaara knew she was acting out of misery and sorrow. She knew that she had been considered by many to have overreacted.

 But Divines, she had tried to pull herself out of the depression. She had tried everything to stop being obsessed by her despair. Nothing worked. All things in Asgard served to do nothing but remind her of what is gone. Loki is gone, and nothing could bring him back. She had stood guard to mourn, going once and half again over the mourning period and found no peace there. Everywhere she turned, she saw his Shade dogging her. The air was heavy with his exhalations, and nothing could remove his presence from her.

 Asgard had once been Loki’s home and now she could find no solace in it.

 Her curtains, laden with magic and memory did nothing but mock her. The Lover that had once been her solace.

 Now Keshaara could not stand to see those stars.

 She ripped the Lover from the skies of her past, tearing the fabric apart to make sure she could feel the magic failing beneath her hands. She never wanted to see that constellation again. It only ridiculed her now. There was nothing for her but pain in that constellation. How could she have ever found comfort in that bitch’s form?

 It was a _lie_.

 All of it was a _lie_.

 Happiness was not for her.

 Love was not for her.

 She was Keshaara, Dovahkiin, abandoned by all things in her life, but most of all by those things that could have brought her joy. There was no joy for her life. No, now she lived purely to die. To find Loki again.

 She would not forget what was lost, but the memories served no purpose. There was no reason to remember how it felt to be in Loki’s arms, or the touch of his lips or how Divines-damned _green_ his eyes were and how much she loved his fingers, or any of the thousands of other things that made Loki such a painfully bright point in her life. Those memories served nothing but pain.

 No, her memory would only recall that she was not meant to have the happiness that seemed to be thrown at the feet of others. She was not allowed to be happy. She was Dovahkiin, she had a duty to do, even now, even in Asgard, even as Tamriel spun back towards its inevitable conclusion and destruction. She always had a duty to do.

 Her destiny was to serve.

 Loki had given her the name of a Queen, but there was no Queen without a King. There was only a widow upon a throne, with a cold band of metal over her brow. There was no comfort in that. She could find no comfort in anything. Happiness was not to be hers.

 Fire burned the Lover to ash.

 Dόmhildr came into her room later that day. Keshaara was dressed in the finery of Aesir, and brushed past the housecarl without a word, heading out the door that she had not exited in weeks. Asgard would feel her fury for what had happened to Loki. Her King had been killed, and she would extract revenge.

 Dόmhildr watched her leave, confused as to why Keshaara looked so upset, but when she saw her Thane’s curtains, hastily mended with a bright red slash of cloth where there had once been a beautiful constellation. The room was in disarray, and the armor Keshaara had made for the day she was to be introduced to Asgard as Loki’s betrothed was covered with the remainder of the red cloth. Keshaara had not looked to its completion because there had been no reason to do so.

 Keshaara was clearly ready to do something, but Dόmhildr had no idea what that could be. But there was intention to her movement now that had been lacking all these weeks of inaction, and Dόmhildr shuddered to think what it could mean. Keshaara never did anything halfway.

 Whatever was about to happen, it was going to be incredible.


	2. Fury

The Tale of the Dragonborn

* * *

 

Keshaara knew where she was going. She knew what she wanted and where to find it. Thor was a hard person to miss. His laughter came from the heavens, shaking the skies like the thunder he was so proud of. The sound of it twisted the rage inside of her. She was a blistering inferno contained in a too-fleshy form.

 She could hear the Warriors Three and Sif with him. They were at the training grounds where she had once sparred with Loki. The memory cut her deeply. They had no right to be happy where he and she had once been. Their laughter tainted the memory. She should have them all killed, but she was only looking at Thor. There was a heavy feeling in her chest and she wanted nothing more than to make Thor bleed for what he did.

 “Thor.”

 Her voice was firm and cold. He held a hand up to stop the others in their combat practice, and turned to Keshaara. Thor had the audacity to _smile_ at her, and open his arms wide, as if he was going to embrace her. From behind Thor, she saw Sif and Fandral’s faces fall, and Hogun winced. The others all seemed to understand why Keshaara’s mouth twisted into a frown when Thor reached for her.

 “Keshaara! Wonderful to see you walking around. Lady Jane had wished to say goodbye to you, but you were still standing in front of the door!”

 Thor moved to hug her, and Keshaara took an obvious, large, step backwards, away from him. Confusion touched Thor’s stupid face, and Keshaara’s hands curled into fists. She wanted to hit him, but she would not give him recourse to say that she had acted improperly. As much as she wanted to destroy him then and there, she was not going to.

 No, she would bring him sufferance and pain.

 “Did you leave Loki purposefully, Thor?”

 He blinked, clearly not tracking what she was saying. Thor was a lunk, an idiot, a block of meat only found to be worthwhile because he bore a magical hammer. Her rage was a white-hot poker in her heart and she had to **force** herself to be still.

 “Keshaara, there was no time. I had to make sure Jane was safe. Loki died a hero.”

 “You covered him, then?”

 “There was no time.”

 That was probably the exact wrong thing to say, and the sudden clench of Keshaara’s jaw indicated that well enough for even Thor to understand that she was growing angrier by the moment. His response was not to apologize, or seek to understand where her fury came from, but to clap a huge meaty hand on her shoulder hard enough to jostle her and continue on.

 “He died, and while it pained me to leave him, I had to tend to Jane. There was no time for anything else. Would that the Fates have willed otherwise, I would have seen him given the proper respects. But there was no time, Championess Keshaara. I had to ensure Jane lived on, and I could not give my brother any burial respects in the time I had.”

 Keshaara pushed his hand from her shoulder harder than was entirely proper. She snapped her finger up, pressing it into the jugular vein on the side of his throat. His skin was warm, and slick with sweat, but she did not falter.

 “His death is on your hands, and you could not take the time to cover his body? They say you came back to Asgard a hero, your cloak billowing in the wind as you declared the problem resolved. The Aether contained, your Lady Jane safe, but you could not bring his body back. Tell me then, how did you leave your brother?”

 Thor finally seemed to comprehend her anger and it was his turn to raise his voice, and his hammer. Keshaara did not spare the weapon a second glance.

 “There was no time! Loki died and knew what that death meant. He had his last words to me, words that took all his strength to give, and then passed on. There was nothing for me to do, I had to protect Jane! He died a hero’s death, which was more than he would have gotten, otherwise!”

 The world stopped rotating. The universe stilled.

  _More than he would have gotten? Should have gotten? **Deserved?**_

 That death was more than Loki deserved? A death, abandoned and alone on a plain far from home, far from the places that would have called him back, far from _her_. That was a death still better than what Thor thought his brother deserved.

 Keshaara’s rage turned into a whirlwind, a tornado, a maelstrom, a firestorm. There was no way to talk of her anger without describing it to a force of nature. It could not be anything but that, for there was no other way for her to even approximate her rage.

 “Kinslayer, I name you for that, Thor Odinson. Oathbreaker. By the bloodright of the Divines, I will have your life for what you did to him. Name your venue and the day, and I will end that chosen day with your innards smeared across the altar to my ancestors.”

 Thor looked shocked, and then furious.

 “How _dare you_! My brother-”

 “Do not **speak** of him! Do not speak of Loki, never again speak of him!”

 The two of them, their voices raised was enough to shake birds from their roosts and send them squawking for quieter breeding grounds.

 Thor made a gesture too close to her with Mjolnir, swinging it not to strike (she knew that) but to gesticulate. She intercepted it anyway, reaching out to grab the hammer by its head and hold it _still_. Thor looked at her without comprehension, shock and anger battling for the position as primary feeling. Keshaara snarled, and twisted, pulling Mjolnir from his grasp. She threw the hammer away from him.

 Magic shimmered in the air around her, and just as Loki had done thousands of times, she pulled armor from nothingness to wrap it around her. Those gathered gasped. The armor fit her as sinfully as Loki’s had fit him. It was the colors of flame and ash. The metal was dulled gold in hue, lain over ash-grey heavy cloth, embroidered with the designs of Skyrim. Dragons chased each other across the metal and cloth, and hanging from her hips down to her ankles, in two tailed points was a half-cape. The cape, like the rest of her motif, was char-grey and brilliant orange, ostensibly the colors of Keshaara. She looked Aesir.

 She looked Nord.

 She looked deadly. She looked regal.

 She was Keshaara, and every last aspect of her was made to compliment Loki. Had the raven Prince been standing next to her, they would have been perfection together. It took no ability to see that. Her gloved hand held Mjolnir still. She stared at Thor, nose-to-nose with him, unflinching as he attempted to jerk his hammer away from her.

 “You are not worthy to talk of him. You left him. You _left him_ and you still would maintain you did the right thing. I would rather you die a thousand thousand deaths in his stead and know that every time, Loki would fight tooth and nail to defend your body and bring you back to your mother. Did you even think of that Thor? Frigga had no body to mourn over. Frigga had nothing but your word. Forget how I feel, for your mother’s pain must be incomprehensible. Your mother has no body to mourn over.”

 Thor looked chastised at that, recoiling from her. Keshaara released Mjolnir, but maintained the distance between them, stepping back towards her.

 “Are you worthy of Jane’s love if you so quickly cast aside your own brother? How long until you cast her to the side? If it is too hard, will you let her die? Will you leave _her body_ behind because it’s so important?”

 There was a denial on his lips, but Keshaara did not stop.

 “No, you would not. You love her. But not your brother. He is worthy of nothing. Yes, I’m familiar.”

 That was when Keshaara drew away from him, a sneer on her lips that reminded Thor all too much of his brother. The people who had gathered were silent. Keshaara’s rage did not care. She wanted to hurt Thor, but as hard as that urge was, as deep as it ran through her, it would not bring her joy. She wanted to skin him, to flay him until she found something of Loki within Thor. But she knew that would not happen. Making him bleed would do nothing but satiate her bloodlust.

 It would not bring Loki back.

 “Struntufel. _Motaad_.”

 His dragon’s name came easily to her, and Thor trembled before her. The naming was simple, and the command was deceptively offhanded. Tremble, shiver, understand my power I now have over you. Thor looked at her in half-horror, beginning to see what it meant when Keshaara called some one by name. Keshaara backed away from him slowly, trying to will her battlelust to subside. She wanted to hurt him, she wanted to watch him bleed, she wanted to make him hurt the way she hurt but she knew that would not make her feel any better.

 “I want you to know you aren’t worth it. You are not worth the curve of my axe. Or of my anger. Or of anything. You are not worthy of that hammer. You are not worthy as Prince. You. Are. Not. Worthy. And Loki still died for you, didn’t he? He died protecting you, trying to do what was right for his brother. You should have died in his stead. Perhaps then Asgard would still have a heir worthy of the name King.”

 Thor said nothing. No one said anything. There was silence and nothing more. Or at least, there was, until Keshaara turned her face towards the skies and called a storm with her voice. She was Dovahkiin, Voice of Storms. She wanted the rain. Thor and the Warriors Three and Sif looked to the suddenly dark sky.

 Keshaara turned and saw Frigga and some of the other noble court behind her. Keshaara felt as if she should be shamed by the display of her emotions. She was an emotive person, yes, but rarely so explosively. She held her truest emotions close to her center, but Loki’s loss had made everything that much rawer inside of her. If she said nothing, she felt like she might explode into stardust and ash. Loki had come to mean so much to her, that living without him was all at once nearly impossible to consider.

 But she had to consider it, because it was all she had now. Loki was gone.

 Dragons keened their loss, however Keshaara doubted it would be appropriate to fall at Frigga’s feet and scream. The rain forced some of the ladies in waiting away, but Frigga stood still, looking down at Keshaara from the steps. Keshaara did not shy away from looking the queen in the eye as the storm intensified around her. Thor said nothing, and Keshaara was happy for that.

 Slowly, Keshaara approached the Queen, extending a hand that glittered with magic to cast a shield spell over the mother of the man she would have gladly married and died beside. The rain parted above Frigga’s head, falling to either side of her, but leaving her dry. Keshaara let the rain wash over her. The weather was good for her. Rain was good for mourning.

 “Keshaara.”

 “My Queen.”

 Keshaara offered Frigga a deep bow, but did not stop to converse with the Queen. There was nothing to say. Not anymore. Keshaara had wanted violence, but Thor was not deserving of her efforts. She had his name, she could pull him anywhere, make him do anything; force him to bend to her bidding. If she wanted to, she could bind him to her as the vampires had done to Durnehviir. She could give him life unending and torture him for centuries. He could be forced to say it was what he wanted, what he desired, his penance for daring to raise the ire of the Dovahkiin. Keshaara had done much worse before to people far less deserving of that fate than Thor.

 But her rage burned itself out. It was a wildfire - dangerous in the moment, but quick to move on. She wished to still maintain her anger at Thor but found she could not.

 As she walked, she knew that she would hate him, yes. Always would she hate Thor. His presence was repugnant to her, his very existence an affront to her, but killing him would not bring her the peace she wanted. Killing him did nothing but cause greater harm to Frigga, who had suffered enough.

 She could not avenge Loki by destroying Thor. It would do nothing. Thor was not at fault for Loki’s death, only the indignity of his resting place, and that was not something she could mend.

 Keshaara settled for hatred. It was better than letting nothingness consumer her again.

 Thor was a brute, an idiot, inconsiderate of all things excepting him in the moment, and…there was nothing she could do about that. Perhaps later, when the wounds were not as fresh, she could elucidate to him why she wanted to make him bleed. For now though, it was best to leave him, and them, in the rain.

 She tracked water through the palace and returned to her room.

 The rain poured down outside. Keshaara stripped her armor off and crawled into the bed she swore still smelled of Loki. The pangs of sorrow dogged her, and she slept.


	3. Memory

The Tale of the Dragonborn

* * *

 The palace inhabitants left her alone for a long while after that. She could walk without fear of someone stopping her, or pulling her aside to tell her how _sorry_ they were that Loki was gone. Keshaara did not really want to hear any of it. Those that had asked if she was okay really only wanted to know when she would be accepting new courtships because she was still a sought-after marriage candidate, apparently. She had no patience for that. How could they look at her as she was (emaciated and trembling, with eyes permanently rimmed in red) and think she would accept anything from them?

 No one really came to visit her.

 Keshaara did not know if she was happy about that or overwhelmingly sad. She did not want to be around anyone, she did not want to see their stupid pity over how horrendously she had fallen to pieces. But she did want someone to be with her, someone to be her companion as she tried to work through everything. She was painfully lonely. Asgard was all glitter and no substance, and she missed the familiarity of Skyrim. Morrowind was a lost memory.

 The loneliness was horrendous. She wanted someone she could lean on, a friend, but she did not really have that. The dragons were not susceptible to the same foibles as she was, Dόmhildr was her housecarl and it would be inappropriate for Keshaara to lean on her for anything other than help in maintaining her rooms, Fandral had not come by since she had threatened Thor, which was fine with her, and that was about the sum total of people she was comfortable with in Asgard. Loki really had been everything.

 She did not know whether to laugh or sob at the indignity of it all. In Skyrim, she could have shown up anywhere, been recognized for who she was and treated respectfully. She had people she knew she could rely on, lineages of men and women who knew Keshaara Dovahkiin and would do anything for her. Yes, her dotage had been lonely, but that had been her choice to withdraw at that point, not anything else.

 This was different.

 Everyone here knew her first as Champion to Loki, which afforded her little, if any actual respect. Sure, they understood she was a force to be reckoned with in battle, but she had also nearly been Loki’s wife, which undoubtedly had set the rumor mills to spinning. Keshaara did not particularly care what the others thought of her, because the opinions of small-minded people had rarely bothered her.

 She let her heart grow hard, and isolated herself above all things. She walked with her head high, but her mind so far removed from everything around her that Keshaara felt as if she had started to understand why some of the dragons were so easily confused by what the mortals did. She was, after all, Dovahkiin, and above them all. And she, of course, could ignore the roil in her gut whenever she allowed herself to think such things. It was right of her to be angry at everyone, it was right of her to hold her fury in her teeth and clench her jaw to keep from spilling it out over everyone. It was right and just because they were all _nothing_ compared to what she had lost.

 It did, however, annoy her entirely too much when she saw Dόmhildr embroiled in an argument with a gaggle of the other serving girls about Keshaara’s impropriety with Loki. They had Dόmhildr backed into a corner, and were spitting all sorts of rumored truths at the poor housecarl, who was giving back as good as she got. Dόmhildr was well-spoken and had fire in her, so Keshaara let her speak for a few minutes longer before clearing her throat and advancing on the group.

 She had never seen a group of women scatter so fast before. Skirts swirled and then vanished as the palace staff all found something better to do at once. Keshaara stared at their quickly-retreating backs and for a few moments did not move. Dόmhildr was flushed with anger still, and clenching her hands down by her sides. Keshaara let the silence rule for a few more moments before turning to Dόmhildr.

 “Next time, punch them. If their masters have a problem with their servant having a black eye or broken teeth, they can come deal with me.”

 Dόmhildr stared at Keshaara like she had grown a second head, and Keshaara held her gaze evenly. There was a heartbeat of silence and then Keshaara smiled, laughing long and hard and pulling Dόmhildr into a tight hug. It was the first time she had really let anyone touch her in a long while, and Dόmhildr returned the gesture after a few seconds, not wanting the moment to be too outrageously awkward. Besides, Keshaara did give _really_ good hugs.

 Keshaara felt something hard in her heart break, and knew, then, that she had been doing herself and those around her a disservice by trying to hold her feelings still. It was a dragon aspect, not a Nordic one. Or one Keshaara should have indulged in. It had been unhealthy for her, and Keshaara could see that now. She had been hurting herself and maligning others who did not deserve her ire, (Except for Thor. Fuck that guy.) and she should have stopped this long ago. It was not their fault she hurt.

 “Come on, I think you need to start having some proper training. I’ve been remiss as Thane.”

 Unused to the physical contact with Keshaara, Dόmhildr did not do anything for a few moments after Keshaara had released her.

“What?”

Keshaara motioned for Dόmhildr to follow her, and the servant did so, noticing almost immediately that they were heading to the training grounds out behind the palace. Confused and consumed with curiosity, Dόmhildr of course kept pace, looking to Keshaara for any sort of explanation.

 When it came, it was not entirely unexpected. Some of the rumors had to be founded in truth, after all.

 “Dόmhildr, please. I’m not going to be in Asgard much longer. It hurts me too much to do so. But I will not leave if I know you are going to be assaulted by the other staff as you watch over my rooms until I am done mourning.”

 “Yes, of course, my Thane, but…it is not done. The servants know how to defend themselves but there’s never any formal training because-”

 “You are the housecarl to the Dovahkiin. In Skyrim, it would be nearly incomprehensible that you have no arms or armor, and no training. All of my housecarls were trained warriors, or summoned demons, bound to my service out of a sense of fealty that was unbreakable. You are my housecarl just as much as they were and I have been entirely remiss in ensuring that you can defend yourself. For that, I apologize profusely. I will not leave until I am certain that you will be able to defend yourself and my things that I leave behind.”

 Dόmhildr did not quite know what to say to that. It was odd, to say the least. But she could not deny that she was excited by the idea of learning the art of war. Especially learning it from Keshaara, who was an undefeated champion who had faced things horrendous and amazing, borne the Tesseract within her, become a dragon, made and unmade a war that had been eons in the making and now was a woman free of all bonds once placed upon her.

 The thought of losing Keshaara to some other place did worry Dόmhildr, of course it did. Dόmhildr liked Keshaara, enjoyed her presence, and had been worried about her. It was not, however, a servant’s place to comment on such things and it had seemed as if Keshaara had wanted space and time to herself. Keshaara was friendly, but it was not until just now, as Keshaara began to outline what she wanted to teach Dόmhildr to do, that Dόmhildr thought of Keshaara as a friend.

 Keshaara taught, Dόmhildr learned, and for a while, Keshaara could ignore the raw, empty, aching inside of her.

* * *

 A few weeks passed in almost pleasant numbness for Keshaara. She did not dwell overlong on what was gone, and managed to repair the momentarily fractured friendships she had started to form with some of Thor’s friends. She gave Thor a wide, nasty berth, not wanting to tempt herself into skinning the last Prince of Asgard. Thor, for his part, respected that. He would stop and let Keshaara pass without trying to speak to her, though she could always see the deeply mournful look on Thor’s face as Keshaara moved by.

 Had Keshaara cared to investigate, she knew what she would find in his heart. But acknowledging that truth that lived in Thor would hurt her more than anything else, so she was careful to keep from thinking of it too much, in order to maintain her sanity.

 Odahviing and Durnehviir knew what would be coming. They were the closest beings in the entirety of the Nine Realms to her, both in soul and kinship, and they knew more of her than she would care to admit. Many things were not to be spoken aloud, and the two of them still knew what was coming. Anyone and everyone who was close enough to watch how Keshaara would refuse to look in the direction of Loki’s rooms, or walk past those doors, or avoid mention of him or his mother, knew what would eventually happen.

 She waited, of course, until Dόmhildr could defend herself with knife and bow, and she had gifted the servant-girl with her own armor, following a long chain of trainer-trainee armor craft that traced back to the very beginning. She waited until things around the palace had settled, and the people of Asgard began to forget what had happened. She waited until Thor left for Earth, for Midgard, for Jane.

 Keshaara wanted to deny how much it hurt for her to know Thor was going back to be with the one he chose after he had abandoned the one she had chosen to rot out in the middle of some great wide nowhere. She liked Jane, as much as she disliked the one Jane had chosen to be in a relationship, and did not want to wish any unhappiness upon the woman. Jane’s life had been turmoil since Thor had first shown up, and Keshaara could not bring herself to fault Jane for wanting something more out of her life.

 She just wished for the chance to have the same thing. She would have had it. She could have had it.

 Keshaara shook her head. That was not a fruitful thought line. She knew what she was doing. All she had was a few more days, and then she would be on Midgard as well.

 Why Midgard? The other Realms just did not work. She had considered, momentarily, choosing Jotunheim. She still had the ability to take the Jotun form. She had tried and found it was still there, but could not bring herself to stay in that form for too long. Being regaled as Queen was nice, and she could rule from an icy throne. But…

 But her Jotun body…it looked so much like Loki. She could not bear to wear that skin for the rest of her life without trying to scratch off the markings and scrub away the memories of seeing Loki’s skin pressed to it. In her own skin, it was bad enough, but the Jotun form had always been something so painfully _his_ that Keshaara could not even comprehend trying to live like that.

 The other realms did not seem as palatable. They had all known of Loki, of Keshaara, and invariably, of Loki’s death and Keshaara’s near catatonia. She could not handle that, either. The idea, the very thought of having anyone know who she was and what had happened and try and _comfort_ her about it made her cringe.

 Midgard was hugely populated, moreso than the other Realms, as it was still growing to the places where the other Realms were at. She could vanish completely if she so desired. That thought pleased her so much. Here, in Asgard, she had to contend with everyone knowing when she was gone, waiting for her to come back, constantly being on the lookout for her.

 Midgard would be nice.

 She had the dragons make the appropriate preparations for her. They knew what she would need, and they knew how to prepare it for her. All Keshaara had to do was to say goodbye. The few people she was friendly with got long, personalized goodbyes. Keshaara wanted them to know that they meant something to her and it would feel disingenuous to leave them without them understanding why. This time, it was not a absence of desperation.

 She **needed** to be somewhere else. Somewhere that did not still bear the ghost of Loki’s touch in the air. Anywhere.

Heimdall told her the Bifrost would put her down in the middle of a desert, far from where Loki had made his invasion of Midgard, far from anyone who knew anything of Asgard more than “aliens!”

That was perfect for her.

* * *

The chosen day arrived, and she…she was stalling. All she had to do was walk to the Bifrost and go. Start a new life. A new place, a new life.

Keshaara found herself walking not towards the exit of the Palace, but to Loki’s rooms. Soon, she was standing in front of the doors she had stood guard in front of for weeks on end, her breath stuck in her throat. Hesitantly, she reached for the door.

 The doors opened easily, and Keshaara exhaled heavily as the expanse of Loki’s rooms were once again revealed to her. Hissing, Keshaara tried to resolve what she saw with what had been when she had been in the room last. She had been screaming the last time she was in here, and the echoes of her howls still rang in the air as she slowly entered the main hall of Loki’s rooms. But…it looked different. Not so much so that Keshaara was certain, but there was a nagging sense of misplacement that hovered around her the more she looked at things.

 She knew that no one had entered the room. She had been standing guard for that very reason, and her magic would have told her if anyone had attempted to come in through the outer porch. But Keshaara could not shake the thought, no matter how stupid it was. No one had been in the room, she was just misremembering because of grief.

 Her heart pounded against the miserable cage that was her ribs. Now that she was in here, she did not know what she expected. Half of her earnestly wanted Loki to step out of the doorway to his bedroom and purr something vaguely insulting about her not noticing he had been there the entire time, and then ask her to come back to their bed. The other half of her knew that was the most heartsickeningly stupid thing her mind had ever come up with.

 He was dead. All she could hope for was to eventually find a death that would bring her back to his side in whatever afterlife she had lost him to.

 Keshaara realized what she wanted.

 Loki had made her a courting gift. They had…they had never had the chance to finish it properly but Keshaara had not asked for it since she had always thought that there would be more time. Time was out. She just wanted the gift. The gift that would still hum with Loki’s magic even after his death. Loki’s magic, his…

 “Divines, just let me find the damn thing.”

 Her search was fruitless. Even looking for the shimmers of magic gave her nothing. There was so much magic in his room (he must have practiced in here, alone for his magic to be so firmly in everything without being an actual enchantment [it hurt]) that she could not isolate what she was looking for. Even if she hadn’t thought of it until she had gotten into that room, her inability to find what she was looking for was driving her towards a panic attack. She was about to go to a place that had no aspect of Loki at all, not even the barest breath of him and she had a desperate urge to have something of his to take with her.

 She swept the papers off his desk, searching fruitlessly for the small box she wanted with a keen sense of longing. It was not here.

 Divines, it could be anywhere out in Asgard, lost in their fight with the elves.

 Keshaara crumpled into a heap at the base of the desk, resting her forehead against the carved wood. Her hands curled around the legs of the desk to try and keep her upright, but there was no stopping the broken sob that ripped out of her throat.

 “ _Loki,_ ” she cried, her voice muffled by her shoulder. She was surprised by the intensity of the emotions for someone she had mourned for weeks already, but she knew, in the same way she knew when a bone was not set properly, that she would never _not_ be mourning Loki.

 Keshaara almost missed the soft ‘click’ of something giving way in the desk.

 She looked up and saw a hidden drawer dropping open out of the underside of the desk. Confused, alarmed, and most of all _curious_ , she reached for the drawer and opened it fully. Inside, carefully pressed together to keep from being crinkled, were rough sheaves of paper. Keshaara recognized the drawings she had done eons ago in Skyrim. Of her. Of Loki. As Jotuns. She swallowed the knot in her throat and pulled the pages free.

 There were more than just those pictures (the ones she thought the wind had taken, she had never thought Loki had stolen them) though. There were drawings behind her own, clearly done in Loki’s own hand. He had a talent for art almost as keen as hers, and his drawings were of a decidedly more soft nature than Keshaara’s clinical renderings of his and her own Jotun forms. It looked like…

 She turned one of the pages that bore his drawing over and was surprised to see an excerpt from the last page of The Book of the Dragonborn. He had been reading this in Winterhold. She remembered – he had been reading this the morning before they left. Or at least, she thought he had been reading it. The drawing on the back of the page, however, suggested Loki had spent a long time sketching her sleeping form before she had managed to awaken.

 There was one picture (on the back page of The Cake and the Diamond, the scoundrel) of the two of them, both apparently asleep, save for Loki’s self-satisfied smile. That one, Keshaara stared at for more time than she wanted to admit to.

 It was not what she came to look for, and she had no idea what trigger she had hit to reveal this hiding place, but Keshaara could not justify letting that piece of paper go from her possessions. Ever. It was hers, and hers alone.

 The other drawings she replaced back into the secret drawer, and reverently closed the drawer. No one else would see those drawings. Not unless they came into Loki’s rooms and snooped, and Keshaara had done her best to make sure of that.

 What mattered now, though, was that she had something to remember Loki by. It was not as good as having something with his magic still in it, but it was drawn by his hand and it made the howling in her chest quiet just the slightest bit.

 It would be enough.

 The doors to Loki’s rooms closed behind her, and she turned her feet towards the Bifrost. She was done with Asgard now. There was nothing for her here. 


	4. Journey

The Tale of the Dragonborn

* * *

 

 She made the long walk to the Bifrost slowly.

 The clothes Keshaara was wearing were unfamiliar to her. Before she had put them on, she had made Dόmhildr promise that this was in fact what Jane had been wearing, or close enough to it that the Midgardians would not immediately peg her as an outsider, giving her some time to try and find where she could blend in. That was the hope at least, but Keshaara had only seen Jane in the clothing of her people the one time, and as much as Dόmhildr had tried to assure Keshaara that the only thing she had done had been to alter the fit to be better for her.

 It would take some time to get used to wearing the clothes the Midgardians wore. Asgard, at least, had been blessedly close to Skyrim in fashion, though at a much higher level. The expectations were around the same, at least. The current fashion trend may be different and the fabric may be sumptuous by comparison, but Skyrim and Asgard had not been so far removed.

 Midgardian clothing?

 Utterly incomprehensible. There was nothing in the clothing that was familiar. Not the cut, not the fabric, not the way it laid on her skin, nothing. There was no way to hide a knife like she was accustomed to, not without cutting the fabric to make slits and Keshaara doubted Dόmhildr would appreciate that after she had spent so long working on the clothing. Dόmhildr had even made a new pouch for Keshaara to carry her things in. The enchantment was easy enough to place back on the new bag, and now that it bore some things of import, Keshaara felt it was truly hers.

 Dόmhildr had done well, and it was not the servant’s fault that Keshaara could not bring herself to like the clothing she was wearing. The shoes were nice though. They had laces and while they could not protect her in a fight, they were comfortable and fitted well. Keshaara decided she liked them. She would try and find some other shoes like them to see what Midgard had.

 The walk was an easy one, if a bit long. She wanted to speed up. She wanted to slow down. She wanted to not be there at all, and she wished to never leave. Keshaara could not make her decision any easier for herself. It seemed like the moment she made peace with her choice to leave the urge to run back into Loki’s rooms and curl in his bedsheets and never leave came back in full force. And as soon as she nearly made up her mind to turn and run, the very air of Asgard pressed down on her with such raw intensity that she could not bear to be there anymore.

 It was in the last stage of thought that she stumbled onto the Bifrost. The rainbow bridge was full of painful memories and she had to close her eyes as she walked out over the edge of the world to try and block the thoughts out. She had fallen here, after Loki, and taken the Tesseract into her. So many good things had happened that day, and so, so many bad ones. Keshaara could not let herself dwell upon what had happened. It nearly made her scream to feel the wind rush past her, and panic rose cold in the back of her throat.

 “Peace, Keshaara. It is different now. There are no dragons except those who have chosen to stand with you. Come into the building here. We’ll wait for the rest of everyone to get here, and then I will send you to Midgard.”

 Heimdall’s voice rocked her out of the panicking cycle, and when he extended a hand to her, she took it happily, pleased to have someone to talk with. The man smiled down at her, his face open and warm. He had not been like this before, but that had, perhaps, been because of duty. Or a game.

 Who knew.

 Keshaara certainly did not care anymore. The contact was welcome. Heimdall was unflappable, a warrior without compare, and she felt in good company when he was around. It was odd to feel such a strong kinship to someone she had not talked with at length for more than one occasion. But it was there, regardless.

 Two old warriors who had, perhaps, seen too much and recognized the same in the other. Maybe it was not so odd, as Keshaara thought of it.

 “Thank you, Heimdall. For this, and for bringing me back to Asgard when I called. I had thought it would all be hopeless at that point. I was scared, and had only just managed to see Odahviing, but I had no voice.”

 Heimdall nodded, but said nothing.

 “I guess you do see much of everything,” Keshaara said with a grin, suddenly understanding why Loki had been recalcitrant that time where she had goaded him into fucking her out in the open.

 “Sometimes, my Lady, more than I wish to.”

 Keshaara laughed, but did not mention anything of what nagged at her about his ability. It was a grand one, but such things usually came with some manner of a downside. A drawback. A promise. Some manner of importance that should not be discussed, so Keshaara did not ask about it.

 She could, however, ask a question she had been wondering since she had begun to ponder her journey to Midgard.

 “Can you…will you be able to see me when I am there?”

 “Of course. I will watch you carefully, as I do all those who are important to the Crown or those of the Crown’s blood.”

 Heimdall did not look at her as she spoke, something Keshaara noted with a quirk of her eyebrow.

 “Did you see Loki die?”

 “I dared not look at what was happening there, for the seeing could have changed it all. I watched what was rippling outwards from it, though, yes. I had to see some of what was happening to believe it. I did not see him die. Nor could I find his body after the battle was won.”

 Keshaara’s hand tightened on his arm, a gesture lost on him, as her hand rested directly on some of his armor. But the sudden inhalation, the way her throat jumped and her body tensed spoke volumes about how that particular revelation had struck Keshaara. Heimdall looked to her abruptly, and saw fury dancing in her whirling eyes. Keshaara turned her gaze, slowly, back to the Palace, and for a moment, prepared herself for battle.

  _Thor had been so remiss that his body had been taken. Not to the grave, not to a hallowed crypt, or mausoleum, but taken. Who had his body. Who touched his armor. Who dared to do that to Loki, Prince of Asgard, Promised One to Keshaara Dovahkiin. Thor would pay. The fault lay with Thor and she would **kill him**_.

 The Dovahkiin allowed her moment of anger, and then shook it away. She could not bear that anger forever. It would corrode her. Control her. Keshaara had had enough of being controlled by outside forces to last her the lifetimes she had already lived, and with another looming in front of her, she was absolutely loath to allow Thor control of this one. She would not forgive him, she would not forget what he had done, but Keshaara would not allow Thor to dictate how she chose to feel.

 The exhalation of the anger and tenseness was forced, harsh-sounding and sudden, but Heimdall said nothing about what had just transpired, and merely let it happen. If Keshaara wished to talk, he would listen, but he would not push. He had seen her mourning and knew it to be that of a woman wounded to the quick. To push on a scar so young, especially on the heart, was cruelty that was solely the realm of Odin. Heimdall had _a little_ more tact than the King.

In that regard, at least.

 “You hold your anger well.”

 “I have had centuries to practice, Heimdall. More than any other in my…realm, I suppose. If I did not learn how to carry it without letting it consume me, I doubt I would have made it very far in my journey.”

 Heimdall made a non-committal sound underneath his breath, and gently guided her to the gate that she would be stepping through in a few moments, after those who were coming to say goodbye managed to do so. He had no other words to offer her. Heimdall had watched Keshaara carefully, and seen much of her. Many people would say that it was an invasion of privacy, to watch someone who did not know they were being watched, but…Keshaara had been an unknown quantity in the Nine Realms and he had had no frame of reference to place her in.

 So yes, he had watched her. Her and Loki, the…probably most amorous couple in Asgard, even above Thor and Jane, they had needed to be watched. He had tried to allow them privacy to keep from total impropriety, but it seemed half the times he thought to check on them, they were engaging in some manner of private affair. He had, of course, seen worse. He _could_ see _all_ things, after all. Heimdall was thankful for his steely outer gaze because he did not need Keshaara to know that he had spied on her and Loki.

 Keshaara was silent, staring out into the void she would soon be hurtling through. The curious stillness had settled upon her emotions once again, and she was…comforted. Quiet.

 The silence between the two of them was interrupted when the farewell party finally arrived. Keshaara was rather surprised that she had gotten here before everyone, as she had rather expected her foray into Loki’s rooms would have made her quite late for this, but it appeared as if her housecarl and the dragons were the ones late.

 They all gathered in a loose circle, and Keshaara extricated her hand from Heimdall’s arm, turning to the dragons and Dόmhildr with a tense smile.

 “Hello, Viingkreinvokun,” the two dragons said in unison.

 Keshaara flinched at the uncommon greeting. The Wings that Shadow the Sun? That was…that was odd. There was no reason to call her that, except their unwillingness to use her new name in the dragon-tongue. The dragons were odd. But they were her friends, and her people. Soon, they would be the only dragons left. Skyrim’s days were numbered and the World Eater would return to destroy all things. They three would be the last to ever exist. Relics of a distant and dead world. The last.

 Perhaps it was because of that. Keshaara did not know, nor did she care to think overlong on it.

 “Dahving, Nehviir. Thank you for coming. I appreciate it more than you could know.”

 She reached out to rest a hand on their own, and both dragons mirrored her movement. Durnehviir looked from her to Heimdall, a question whirling in his golden eyes. Keshaara stepped away from the dragon, furrowed her brows, and turned to Heimdall as well.

 “I…have a kindness to ask of you, Gatekeeper.”

 Odahviing tuned to Durnehviir and made a querulous sound. Heimdall nodded for the old, half-rotten dragon-man to continue.

 “I wish to see the realm of Helheim. The Lady Hel…she is like me. I wish to ask her to stay with her there. It is a comforting thing to me, to be amongst the dead. I have found myself missing that far more than I had thought. If the Thuri does not object, I would like to go.”

 Keshaara huffed and shook her head.

 “Nehviir, I would never mind you trying to find your happiness. If Heimdall agrees, I would never stand in your path between here and Helheim.”

 Durnehviir beamed at her, smiling broadly. Keshaara rather thought it was the happiest she had ever seen the old Dov, and could not help smiling back at him.

 “I will send you there, as I think you would be a guest Lady Hel would not mind seeing. I should send you off before I send Keshaara away, however. Does the other have a request as well?”

 Odahviing shook his head…then nodded, and looked back at Keshaara, almost as nervous as Durnehviir had been, only outwardly so.

 “Thuri, I wish to stay in Asgard. With Dόmhildr. To guard your rooms. And Loki’s. I want to learn about this place. I like being around her. The skies are nice here, and I would like to fly in them.”

 Keshaara laughed, throwing her head back.

 “Of course you can stay. Do not bring dishonor to the Dov with your actions, but please, bring happiness to yourself. I want the both of you to find what brings you joy. As long as the Realms you seek accept you, find peace.”

 Odahviing smiled broadly, and in a surprisingly human gesture, stepped forward to embrace Keshaara in a tight hug. Keshaara returned the embrace, holding the dragon-man close. Dόmhildr blushed furiously when Keshaara looked over Odahviing’s shoulder to her. Perhaps she had missed something brewing between the housecarl and the dragon, but it was not her business, really. What brought them happiness, brought them happiness. That was not what anything she should concern herself with.

 Let them be happy. Find their happiness.

 It would be good.

 Heimdall oriented the bridge to point to Helheim and helped Durnehviir through the gateway. The old dragon did not look back at anyone, staring straight ahead into the portal, anticipation touching the scarred, half rotten face. Keshaara watched with bated breath as Durnehviir vanished to the realm of Hel, and when he was gone, she exhaled heavily.

 One was happy now. Odahviing would have purpose without her here, and Dόmhildr would have a maintained purpose as well. Everything was going rather well. That was good.

 She took a deep breath again. It would be her turn. Heimdall reoriented the Bifrost. Any other time, she would have been utterly fascinated by the magic involved with making something like this work, she would have asked questions unending until Heimdall tired of her prying or shoved her into the void regardless.

 But…but this time she had a knot in her gut and the buzz of adrenaline in her ears. She was going to go to a new place. Somewhere she had never been before. She had the ability to _choose_ where she was going. The thought was unfamiliar to her and nervousness knotted with her adrenaline until she was practically vibrating with anticipation.

 The gate opened, Heimdall extended a hand to her, a gallant gesture that Keshaara took. If he noticed that her hand was shaking, he did not say anything about it. Keshaara stared into the opalescent void.

 She took one last breath of the air of Asgard.

 And passed through the gate.


	5. Capture

The Tale of the Dragonborn

* * *

 Passing through the gate of her own accord was a pretty odd experience for Keshaara. Not once had she utilized the Bifrost intentionally, and it was far more exhilarating this way, really. She flew through the kaleidoscope of color, watching the Realms spin away from her. The Bifrost was enchanting, a magical power far beyond anything that she had experienced in Skyrim, and she felt it twisting her body around, orienting it to Midgard, turning her so that when her feet finally hit something solid (and the Bifrost warped the air around her with crystalline rainbows) she did not fall or stumble.

 The whole process was exceedingly gentle, and when the Bifrost receded from her, Keshaara blinked the last remnants of rainbows out of her eyes and looked around Midgard.

 She had been told that the Bifrost was going to set her down in the desert of one of the countries of Midgard because it was far enough out of the way that Heimdall did not have to worry about accidentally setting her down on someone. She had not, however, expected…well, anything other than that. This was a world completely new to her, and when she took her first shuddering breath in, the new smells and tastes in the wind nearly bowled her over.

 Midgard was so _different_.

 Keshaara was uncertain if she was happy with that or upset by it, but all that mattered was that it was different, and no breath of Loki’s whispered to her on the air. That was good.

 She looked up to the heavens, knowing that it was not necessarily “up” to Heimdall who was undoubtedly still looking “down” at her, but the motion made sense to her.

 “Thank you, Heimdall.”

 And with that, she put Asgard out of her mind. She was on Midgard now. Earth. They called it Earth here. She should remember that. It was important to not stick out overmuch in this new place, though she was certain she would regardless. There was always nuance to be missed, but perhaps she could pass that off as being foreign to this area of Mid…Earth. That was plausible enough, and a good plan.

 Keshaara nodded, accepting her new thought process as being good enough to get her to the first town she would come across. Like Riverwood, she would go to the first place she came across and see what she could do to ingratiate herself there and find a way to the next place when it was time. She would move slower this time. There was no prophecy pushing her towards the Throat of the World and a battle with a dragon older than most all things in the universe. Keshaara was alone.

 Or at least she had thought she was, until she turned around and saw a semicircle of black metal carts? With people in black clothing that looked nothing like what she was wearing standing just outside the carts. Had Dόmhildr been mistaken in what was appropriate for people on Earth to wear? Embarrassing.

 Keshaara drew herself up to her full height, adjusted the… Dόmhildr had said it was called a knapsack or backpack…whatever, she shifted how it fit over her shoulders and turned to face the strangers fully. She did not say anything to them. If they were to speak, they would speak first.

 With pride, she noticed that none of them could maintain eye contact with her for long. She bore the long stare, the fierce colors and the whirling maelstrom of intensity of a dragon, still, and these people were completely unaccustomed to such things. That was good to know. Keshaara could tone it down if she chose to, and chose to, in this instance, not. There was something hovering around the people who had chosen to come just as she came through the Bifrost, and Keshaara’s hackles instinctively rose at them.

 Not that they could tell that she was already preparing to bolt. They stood, and waited, watching her as close as they could.

 Keshaara had been told that it was rare for Midgardians to have magic of their own, but they could be able of incredible feats of strength and technical prowess. What those feats entailed, she was not entirely certain, but she was loathe to find out mere minutes from landing on Earth. It would be best if she did not get into any sort of altercation immediately, but she felt that the situation was quickly spiraling towards just that sort of thing, and she had no idea why. Or how. She had done nothing, but these people were clearly anticipating a huge problem.

 “Asgardian, come with us.”

 Keshaara turned to the man who had spoken, crossing her arms and rolling her shoulders back. The fact that she understood their language was not lost on her, but she could not tell what, exactly, had gifted her the ability to understand their tongue when this was the first time she had ever encountered their language.

 “I am not of Asgard. And I will not be going with you.”

 Their language came easily to her and she did not care to understand why. She spoke their tongue with the grace and eloquence befitting a dragon, and it clearly shocked them.

 “You came by the Bifrost, as Thor said you would. We require your presence. Please, come with us.”

 A woman spoke this time, and Keshaara sent the coldest look she could muster at the lady. Her glare could be sharp enough to split diamonds, and the woman quailed beneath Keshaara’s gaze.

 “You spoke to Thor.”

 The woman nodded emphatically, nearly shaking with the effort. Keshaara drew herself up to her full height and stared down her nose at the assembled humans.

 “Thor told you that today was the day I came through the Bifrost.”

 This time, she shook her head, and one of the other assembled people in black nudged her. The woman could not look away from Keshaara’s eyes though. An advantage of her new eyes, at least, was that they could be damned near hypnotizing if Keshaara put enough effort into making them so.

 “What did Thor tell you.”

 “N-n-nothi…”

 The woman was hefted and pulled away, but the damage had been done. These people had not been told of her arrival by Thor. That was a lie, Keshaara hoped, for Thor’s sake. If Thor had told of her arrival to Midgard, she would have hunted him down and killed him, as she had promised to do, the affect on Jane be damned. Keshaara had wanted to come here alone and survive alone and be alone without having any reminders of what she had lost and not five fucking minutes on this planet and she was already having it thrown in her face.

 Her lips curled back over her teeth in a snarl unlike anything that had been seen on Midgard in centuries. Keshaara _was_ rather upset.

 “Our apologies, fair Lady.”

 Someone else spoke, stepping forward and lifting his hands placatingly. Keshaara turned her gaze towards the new person, noticing that the others were walking around the side of her, to flank. These people did not intend for her to leave here on her own. They wanted her to come with them. Odd. Not odd, really, but unexpected. Why were these people here, awaiting the arrival of an Asgardian? What did they hope to gain from watching the Bifrost, and why would they think to mention Thor first, when there were other Asgardians to mention that may elicit more cooperation than the Golden Prince. It was exceedingly suspicious, and Keshaara was on alert immediately. 

  Keshaara gave no response to the apology, and half-listened to the explanation they gave as to why she needed to go with them. It was long-winded and if she had been what they had expected, perhaps it would have been convincing. Perhaps she would have relaxed, and agreed with what they wanted. They spoke obliquely of Thor and how they had helped him, still not understanding her initial reaction. She did not trust them, she did not trust their words, and she certainly did not want to go with them.

 But there were no other options. These ones seemed like they were but a branch of a much larger organization, and Keshaara could not know what was in store for her just yet. She would have to play along.

 Play along.

 Vapidly, she nodded and followed behind the man who was talking at her, allowing him to think that he had convinced her to come with them, muttering pretty nothings about how nice it was to be greeted as she visited this new world. He told her to sit in the car, and Keshaara filed away that information in her mind. The metal carts were cars. She sat and fumbled with the strap that was meant to hold her in until someone clucked at her and showed her how to do it. She fiddled with the release clasp a few times, clicking the “seatbelt” in and out and in and out and in and out a few times as she tried to understand how it all worked.

 She sat in the seat near the window, on the right side of the car. There was a button near her right hand, and she pressed it. To her surprise, the window of the car went down. She pulled the button back up by its lip, and the window went back up. Keshaara made a pleased humming sound at the discovery, and played with that particular button for a while.

 The car started, the grinding whirr of an engine rumbling through the vehicle, and when it started to move, Keshaara could not help the delighted sound of surprise that came out of her, and she immediately leaned over to look at the front seat area, and all the buttons there. This was fascinating! She liked the car!

 Keshaara asked questions about every button. She was introduced to the radio and was ceaselessly interested in that as well.

 “How does it work? How do you tune it? Radio waves cannot be heard without the receiver, how do you send the waves out? How do radio waves work? That one is sent by satellite? What are satellite? How did they get in space? What is space? You guys went to the moon? How? When? Did the people come back? What is the moon like? What do you know about the realms around you?”

 Keshaara’s questions were nonstop, and while she looked around at the desert they were travelling through, she suppressed the potential questions of the people who had her “captured” (she had heard one of them whispering into the small clear-ish thing near their wrist that they had done so, at least). It was an artful way of getting information without giving information, and she was careful to keep all mention of who she had been in Asgard, and especially her time in Skyrim or Morrowind. She would not even utter the words of her homeplanet if she could manage it, and boy did she manage to talk around it.

 The car and the unfortunate people trapped within it travelled for a long while, clearly heading somewhere. The sunset lit the sky with the shades of fire and Keshaara was entirely too consumed with watching the people in the car with her curl into sad little balls of annoyance at her constant questions.

Keshaara had been a mother to twelve children. She could ask questions forever, and when she was in such a strange place, it was in her best interest to know as much as possible. The more she knew, the better it would be for her when eventually, she managed to get away. Because that was still the plan. Distract them to the point of annoyance, then wait for the moment when she could run into the distance she could see.

 She learned about electricity, and how it powered things. That cars ran on a refined oil called gasoline that was made from the decomposing bodies of creatures that lived a long time ago. She learned that the buttons were made of plastic and that was _also_ refined from the same oil that gasoline was made into. She learned about clothing and how to call her shoes (they are sneakers, though Keshaara could not see what made them particularly sneaky. There was no enchantment on them, regardless), and she learned about how to describe things that was appropriate in this day and age.

 There were many things to learn about, but the most important ones were the ones that kept her safe.

 The cars drew ever closer to a building that was flanked only by the wide expanse of the sandy desert, and Keshaara knew that this was where they intended to hold her for the foreseeable future. They intended to study her as they wished to have studied Thor. Thor was an Asgardian, bearing power they desired, and his brother, Loki, had nearly brought the world to its knees. If they could harness that power…if they could, there was nothing that could stop them and now they had someone to try and test on to see if they could formulate a way to capture one of the other brothers later in the day.

 Keshaara, still vomiting questions into the air, just to keep her air of being ceaselessly, vapidly, curious, looked around the desert outside of the compound they were heading towards. The sunset had done odd things to the sky, but as the darkness of night fell, she saw a glimmer on the horizon. She was quick to keep her gaze from lingering overlong on the spot she saw, but Keshaara had learned enough. Those were lights, from electricity, in the city. The stars were dimmed. Light pollution. That would be where she could go. Where they expected her to go if she got away.

 Potential, regardless.

 The car passed between the mouth of a gate, and Keshaara turned her head to watch it close behind her, still gabbling questions at how and why and how long and when, so she could disguise everything she studied with the open-mouth stupidity they seemed to expect from her.

 Keshaara was Dovahkiin.

 She had been captured before. She knew how to work this game, and these people knew nothing about her. So she had the upper hand, even if she was in a completely unfamiliar land. Keshaara had to cough to catch her laugh to keep from alerting the captors that she was on to their plot. Sometimes the cosmic deity was…funny.

 The more things change, the more they stay the same.

 She came to try to find something worth her living for, only to be captured and taken somewhere completely unfamiliar where the people holding her captive were not quite as smart as they thought. Well then, let the third iteration of this game begin. Perhaps this time she could win. 


	6. Flee

The Tale of the Dragonborn

* * *

 

The gate crashed shut behind them, locking her inside the compound but the car did not stop immediately. They drove even further into the place, around buildings (they were made of concrete and steel she had found out) and then down into an underground cavern. They called it a garage when she asked about it.

 Garage. Underground garage. She committed the words to memory. She would get out of here. She would escape, of course, and then she would have to blend in. These people moved as if they were just part of something so much larger, and talked about themselves in the same way that Keshaara was pretty much certain that they would do anything to capture her. They had her once, and her loss would undoubtedly upset them.

 Keshaara felt a surge of abject happiness at the idea of pissing these people off. Those in the car were nice enough, but they were captors. Captors that sounded like a wrongness to her, that had a kernel of darkness in them like the vampires that served Harkon had possessed once upon a time. She knew that that sort of wrongness. She knew what came from this manner of acting.

 They believed their cause was just. They believed many things, but they were wrong. So wrong. Painfully so.

 Keshaara held no aspirations that she held all the answers, but she knew that she was not as wrong as they were.

 They led her from the car, urging her gently into the center of their formation, and she knew that that was intentional. To keep her in line. To manage her if something were to happen, really. She would have done the same thing if she had been in command of the group. The fact that it was being done to her just made her smile. She was careful to keep the smile relaxed, open, and not at all wolfish. It would do her no good to be discovered as a fully aware and fight-ready being just before the end of this particular trip.

 Keshaara was so careful to keep up her appearances as a not-at-all coherent, not suspicious, not at all worth looking over. She needed to maintain this mask until they put her somewhere to be alone. Then she would be free and clear to escape. Already, her mind was spinning out the thousands of possibilities of what she could do in order to maintain her freedom.

 She needed to not stay here overlong. There was only so much information that she could glean from them without running into words and phrases that meant nothing to her and never would. She did not need to know everything, just enough to pass as a normal person in the world and continue to exist as she wanted to. She wanted freedom from all things that had once bound her, and now these people were in the way.

 They led her down glistening white hallways, tiled with nothing but blanket, clean, pristine white. If it had meant to disturb her, it succeeded. She had never been around so much white in one place before. She felt uneasy, and that was clearly the intent. Every step echoed, every half-there whisper resounded so loudly that Keshaara was half certain that she could hear her own heartbeat.

 The panic rose and was tamped down. This new place was very interesting, but not nearly as bad as the old Dwemer ruins had been. Still, she appreciated out imposing it all seemed to be. Had she not been who she was, it may have made her far more nervous than it did.

 She saw small boxes with blinking lights atop them and when she pointed to one and asked about it, one of the people laughed and said to wave because the security team was watching through that camera. No further explanation was given, but Keshaara rather thought that she understood it well enough. Things that looked like that managed to record her image and transmit it elsewhere, where there were people to look at them.

  She committed that particular tidbit of information to the part of her memory that was reserved for getting in to and out of places without being harmed. There was a lot of harm to be done to her if she did not manage to do this properly.

 “May I go see Thor now, please? I would like to speak to him, even if this place is nice. I would like to leave.”

 The people turned to each other, each seeking the gaze of the one Keshaara now knew to be their leader. There was an undercurrent of tension that suddenly filled the air and Keshaara rather judged the time was ripe for an escape.

 “I cannot go, can I?”

 Their hands strayed towards the odd black things at their hips, and Keshaara made herself recognize them to be weapons. Easy enough then.

 “Zun Hall Viik,” she said, almost casually. The words of power dripped from her tongue with nearly effortless power, and –

 Well she certainly did not expect what happened next. Apparently the realignment of her soul, the true absorption and fusion of both dragon and mortal magics had made her shouts more than just brutal. The weapons at their hips went flying, straight through the tile and walls themselves. There was a moment of dumbstruck silence before the alarms began wailing. Keshaara bolted, running through one of the people who had been assigned to keep her in one place, and rushing back the way she had come. That only lasted so long before more people were running down that same hallway, towards her. They bore no outright weapons, but they certainly were not looking to congratulate her new shouts.

 Keshaara was quick on her feet, but they had numbers. And a pointy thing that made contact with her arm and sent numbness racing through her blood. Keshaara did _not_ like that particular pointy thing and pulled it out of her body with a vicious snarl. The person who had held the pointy thing got their throat punched and died gasping for air that would not come.

 Unlike the herbs and poisons she had grown accustomed to in Skyrim; this numbness could not be shaken away. It spread like ice, clawing her muscles into submission, and Keshaara could not fight it.

 She could, however, fight the people holding her. One arm was numb already, but that did not really stop her for too long. Or at all, really. Keshaara was a warrior, and even without her armor and arms, she was a downright terror.

 When she spun and kicked one of the assailants in the teeth, the man crumpled to the ground, clutching his mouth as blood and shards of teeth poured out of him. Keshaara knew to look out for the prickly thing that some of the people still held, and the next one that came close with one of the prickles was met with a ward spell that barely glittered in the air, but still bent the thin metal tip of their paltry weapon away from her skin. Shock was apparent, but Keshaara could not dwell on it. Her numbed arm had started to burn, and the ice in her blood had started to seep closer to her chest.

 Keshaara did not want to be here if the numbness was going to spread. She had, perhaps, moved too fast, shown her hand too soon, because more people were rushing in towards her and as confident as Keshaara was in her abilities, she had no desire to fight through a horde when it was not needed.

 “Feim Zii Gron,” she whispered, her voice soft and lost beneath the cacophony of battle.

 Her body shimmered into ethereality, and then, out of vision. In tandem with her inherent sneakery, Keshaara was invisible and untouchable. The gathered people immediately began to panic searching high and low and pointing in all directions saying they saw her there. Illusionary magic was incredibly useful in these sorts of situations, really. Keshaara had them jumping at shadows as she slowly, carefully, edged away from them, back towards the garages, to the cars that she was pretty certain she could not drive, but had a good idea on how to get someone to drive for her.

 The shadow-forms she sent out behind and before her had the agents too distracted to really pay attention to what she was actually doing, or where she was going. Pickpocketing was as easy as it had ever been for her, and Keshaara began obsessively collecting things that these people had carried in their pockets, shoving them all in her rucksack without looking at them. She could look at it later, right now, she just needed to collect what she could and get the fuck out of there. She did nothing so crass as to steal clothing (though she did consider it, it would pretty much immediately give away her position and that was not something she wished to do), but she did work carefully to take as much as she could without taking anything that could be missed in the fracas going on around her.

 Keshaara had to stifle her rueful laugh. Substitute these goons for vampires, and this was almost like her sad secondary introduction to the country of Skyrim as well. History was truly rather repetitive, apparently. Especially when it came to certain parts of her life, it seemed. Well, that was nice and all, and it made her heart heavy, but the introspection was not so helpful right then.

 She had no idea when her incorporeality would wear off, since she had not had a reason to use her shouts before then, and the disarm shout had had such a wildly violent effect. But Keshaara needed to have her plan in motion before that happened. The shades of her that flickered at the edges of vision of these people all turned towards the garage as well and bolted in that direction. Keshaara followed the sudden flow of people out to the garage, sneak-jogging behind them to let them all go out and get in their cars to chase her.

 Keshaara smiled at the screams and commands that were coming from the panicking people. People who were clearly in charge were shouting for the lesser to do whatever it took to “Get that bitch back!”

 The screamed slurs warmed the cockles of Keshaara’s heart. She liked knowing that she had been correct in her assumption that these people were not to be trusted, or allowed near her. Maybe she would have felt a little bad if she had started all this chaos for nothing and these people had been being very nice to her and she had simply misunderstood them, but that was clearly not the case.

 She sat still and waited, watching the cars rushing out to chase shadows that dogged the eyes of those who wanted to hunt her down until there was only the one left, alone and in the corner. Its driver was struggling with her keys, fumbling to get them out of her pocket. This one was a new recruit, Keshaara surmised. The others had moved with a brutal efficiency, not stopping or pausing for a moment, and this poor unfortunate had stopped, waited, and moved uncertainly.

 Keshaara was still careful though. She did not know if this was just an act, meant to entrap her if she suddenly became unwary, but she was not going to let this one capture her. She just needed a good way to get to the town she had seen and then work on blending in so that she would not be captured by these goons. Again, she almost laughed. Goons. That had been how she had first referred to Thor and his friends as well.

 Ah, cyclic living.

 Keshaara slid into the backmost seat of the car, sliding easily through the door and then hunkering down in the back seat, careful to stay out of the direct line of sight from the person she was hitching a ride with. The car eventually started, and the person eventually got on the road behind the other racing cars towards the next nearest town. Keshaara was careful to stay still as she finally felt the effects of the shout wear off, leaving her corporeal, but still hidden. The driver carried on, and Keshaara had to twist her head almost painfully to see where she was.

 She had to wait until they were in the town, so that nothing would keep her from being able to escape into the shadows of a place where people lived. The dark sky was a comfort, and then a curse as she remembered the gift Loki had never given her would have shown her these stars.

 Keshaara curled up into a tighter ball in the little gap she had settled into, set her eyes on the sliver of horizon she could see, and let her mind wander. There was not much for her to do, and she was not going to make some sort of new-wanderer mistake and let this person be aware of her presence before Keshaara was ready for that moment.

 The stars remained still as the car moved at a pretty astonishing clip. Plantlife unlike anything she had ever seen whipped by the window of the car, and Keshaara kept herself awake by trying to identify everything she could about the unfamiliar world from what she could see of it from her vantage point. Dunes and red-touched rocks flashed by, and while it was soothing and near hypnotizing, Keshaara was careful to keep herself awake.

 Her numb arm slowly returned to feeling fine, and Keshaara relaxed further. She had much to learn about this place and what to do, and she would start by getting to a library or other repository of knowledge to begin really understanding what was happening in this world. Knowledge was power, and she was always on the search for more ways to truly understand power.

 This world was unfamiliar. The first streetlight they passed drew a nearly reverential silent gasp from Keshaara. Those were amazing! There were lights in Skyrim, lamplights and in Asgard, there had been some as well. But Asgard was steeped in magic and she could understand that. But Midgard…Midgard had no inherent magic to its air, not like Skyrim and Asgard had, so seeing the light, and knowing it ran on electricity and how they had made it work without any sort of magic for themselves made her heart nearly sing.

 Then there was the next one, and the next! She saw lights that had colors to them, and burned red or green and directed the other cars (cars came in other colors and shapes!) and lights that blinked and all sorts of other things. Keshaara was thrilled. This was amazing!

 The car slowed to a stop, and her driver exited, grumbling about the car using so much gas. Keshaara figured this moment was as good as any other, and carefully uncurled herself. Carefully, she looked for where the driver had gone, and after establishing that the woman had indeed been distracted enough to not really watch Keshaara too closely as she cloaked herself in shadows and quietly –

 “Tiid Klo Ul.”

 Everything warped into near-stillness, and Keshaara opened the door to the car, rolled out, closed the door behind her and began to run, all before the woman could even see what was happening. There was no way for the woman to react in time. Keshaara’s time warp had effectively trapped her in a state unable to act upon what she saw. Keshaara ran, bolting for the nearest alleyway. The shadows embraced her, and time moved slowly for long enough for her to get halfway across the strange town, and bunker down in secluded, quiet spot.

 Time returned to its normal pace, Keshaara smiled, and began to plan her next move. She was free. Her blood sang joyous exultations, and there was nothing in her way. It was time to find where she could go next.


	7. Explore

The Tale of the Dragonborn

* * *

 

The next few days were a blur of activity. Keshaara had to work relatively hard to avoid detection for the first few hours. The agents were _everywhere._ They hunted her with the ruthless singlemindedness her Companion-sibs had once hunted the Silver Hand, and been hunted in return. The hunt was not what bothered her. Keshaara actually rather enjoyed the familiarity of the feeling, as it helped her better understand what she was doing and where she was. If this one thing was familiar, the rest of Midgard rather fell into place around her.

She did not like how these agents did not seem to care about the civilians around them . Too often Keshaara had to throw a half-rushed ward spell to deflect debris from those who could not defend themselves. The agents had been caught off guard the first time the purple-tinted air shimmered around Keshaara, keeping her safe from the projectiles their black weapons shot. When one of them made the erroneous assumption that that was the only magic Keshaara possessed, Keshaara did not try and dissuade them of that error.

 Let them think her less powerful than she was. Ward-spells were clearly not heard of here, and if they were awed by that, Keshaara did not to show them where they were wrong. Let them think that magic astonishing. She would save her firestorms for a moment that needed it.

 The days dragged on, and Keshaara began to better understand where to hide and how to blend in to this town. The people who lived there clearly knew something was wrong, and Keshaara did what she could to convince the agents chasing her that she was, in fact, no longer there. It worked surprisingly easy. A different version of the same spell that had originally led them away from their base (how they had not figured out that they had not all been able to see her simultaneously and instead had been chasing shades, Keshaara would never understanding) was used again, and slowly, the agents moved on.

 Keshaara had to keep her head down.

 But she learned.

 The things she had stolen from the agents, and continued to steal as she brushed up against them, quickly became very useful tools. She understood how their money worked, and what different things did. It had taken a bit of doing, but Keshaara understood the money enough to make sure she did not go hungry. Junk food was interesting. Candy was moreso. She liked candy a lot. Candy was awesome and it made her feel twitchy inside without any downside other than a nice nap later.

 Keshaara learned about a lot of things. She learned she counted as homeless, and that sometimes the officers in charge of upholding the laws did not like that. She learned that she needed something that identified her, and found out just knowing her name was not enough. She had to have a driver’s license or a social security card or a passport. She learned what those words meant and realized there was no way for her to get those things. So she learned to hide from where the officers went and make herself hidden at night.

 She learned that some Midgardians would give her food and press dollar bills into her hands for her to go get herself coffee. She learned others would spit on her for being a dirty hobo. Keshaara learned to control her rage at that, but did everything in her power to curse those who would dare do such a thing. Keshaara learned that she did not have to ask for money to be looked down upon.

 She learned a lot.

 There were good and bad people, as there had been in Skyrim, but it seemed the Midgardians had more variance in them. Not to mention, more _of_ them. From Keshaara’s new understanding, this country was America, and it was not even the largest of the countries in Midga...Earth. That was mind-boggling. Skyrim had been pretty large, she had thought, but Earth was huge! She had so much space to explore, and nothing keeping her from doing so.

 Still evading agents, Keshaara began to make her way across the country, towards the place called New York. That was where the Avengers were. Jane worked with them on occasion, and while it was likely Keshaara would be near Thor if she found the Avengers, she was willing to put up with that if it got her near someone she knew.

 On occasion, she would brush up against one of the agents, and there would be a scuffle. Keshaara would come out on top, usually with some extra money for her next step forward, or a new piece of clothing. Her outfit was replaced in pieces as she travelled. Her shoes were traded for heavier boots that one of the agents had had. Her feet felt better in the boots, even if they were not covered in metal. She managed to buy herself a heavier sweater as she moved east, at one of the thrifty stores she passed. She liked those places and often would find one just to go in and look at things.

 Keshaara bought books when she could, sometimes preferring to have a new-old book to bide her times on the buses she rode instead of a meal. She slowly grew out of eating only junk food, and tried to find better food when she could. But money was hard to find when she was not in contact with agents to pilfer from. Begging was not beneath her, but Keshaara knew that her begging would take money from others who probably needed it more than she did.

 She could go without food for longer, feel cold, longer, and walk longer than most of the other Migardians could. Her endurance was unmatched, and when she missed buses or could not afford them, she walked, looking over maps and plotting routes. Some things did not change. Maps, at least, were still pretty easy to read. She just had to get used to the shorthand used in this realm and on these maps, and then it was as easy as anything else had ever been.

 Keshaara travelled far, keeping the final destination she wanted in mind, but still keeping herself hidden. She could not go directly anywhere. Circumambulatory routes were the best to use, as they allowed her to move freely without being found out as easily. Keshaara began to understand that the agents could watch the videos of anything, anywhere. She had to be leery of all cameras which made workers leery of her. They kept thinking she was going to steal something, when really; she was just trying to stay out of any more confrontations.

 She went hither and thither, working towards her destination without appearing to do so. She could not go directly, so she took the time to explore. This America was large and covered vast biomes, far more than Skyrim had. Keshaara loved it, though quickly found the heavy, wet mugginess of the more east and southern lands were not to her liking. She liked the food there, and how all the people talked, and all the trees, but the temperature and weather was just. Awful. She was happy to start moving northward again when the time came for that.

 The cities were always astounding. She loved the tall buildings, the ones covered in glass that glittered in the sunlight. Keshaara would stand in awe looking at the construction of other buildings, press her hand reverently to the glass of one of the other tall buildings (eliciting frowns from the people who were there to keep that glass clean) and stare at the skyline for hours. They were amazing! Huge!

 She loved looking at them.

 Keshaara wandered towards the town she had heard about. One of the people she had spent some time talking to, where she had expressed how much she wanted to learn more and see history and how enamored Keshaara was with all facets of life, had told her to look at going to a place called Washington D.C. and finding the museums there. The Smith-soni-ans were museums in this place and she could there to look and learn things for free. Big buildings full of history, not just of the America place, but of parts of the entire world.

 She rather forgot to be nondirect in her excitement, but the agents had pretty much stopped trying to capture her, so it seemed safe enough to rush to the place with museums.

 The museums.

 Divines the _museums_.

 Keshaara started with natural history. She looked at gems and the fossils, she looked at the jewelry and the stuffed animals, she read every placard and every sign, she asked ceaseless questions of the docent who seemed as if they welcomed that sort of work. Keshaara spent days at that one museum, looking at everything, sitting still and staring at whatever was in front of her.

 She learned so much and it was not enough for her insatiable need for knowledge. One museum was consumed, and the next one was art. Art and paintings unlike anything that she had seen in Skyrim. Or Asgard. That was the point, Keshaara knew – she wanted to see how these people had throughout history interpreted the world around them. There were a few places where it seemed the ways of Skyrim, Asgard, and Earth overlapped in design and Keshaara studied those areas intensely.

 Keshaara could understand the overlap between the two connected Realms, but it looked like even Skyrim and Tamriel had succumbed to the similarities. There was something there, she knew, something important she could note, something she _should_ note. Something must connect Skyrim to these Realms, because she was _here_ and **he** had been _there_. There must be something, but that discovery would have to wait for another time. That was a discovery that required dedicated research and more items than Keshaara currently had at her disposal.

 So instead, she closed off the hyper-analytical portion of her mind and went back to enjoying the art. She spent time with the art, studying it and appreciating it, and sitting in silent contemplation of it. These were interesting things, and very interesting people.

 The art, she would revisit as she learned more. Art deserved more than one viewing, and as she learned more, her opinions of the art would undoubtedly change. That was the purpose of the art. To view, and view, and view again, until the art was as much a part of you as it was of the artist.

 Perhaps that was just Keshaara’s desire to be an artist speaking and not actually how the world worked. Who knew.

 The next museum she selected was one devoted solely to the history of the country she was currently in. It was a sprawling thing, and while she wanted to understand everything that had happened, it seemed that the start of this country ignored too much of where it had come from. Again, though, Keshaara was an outsider looking in and could easily be ignoring or missing context that other visitors to this place would have had. Or not. She did not know.

 This museum was not as entertaining to her as the others had been. She wanted to treat it with the same level of respect and awe as she had done for the natural history museum and the art museum, but she found herself incapable of caring about most of the things being talked about. They were interesting, sure, but they were interesting in the same abstract way that the history of Asgard was interesting to her. The history of Tamriel was one thing – it was home-history, the song of her ancestors. The history of America? It was not song, it did not sing to her, and nothing could make it sing. It was a dry history. The history of books, not of songs.

 She wandered through the exhibits, until she came to one that was clearly both popular and very important. It was about Captain America, and Keshaara vaguely remembered that he was one of the Avengers. Keshaara learned a lot about the man in the next hour.

 And made the decision she did not care for him.

 Staring up at the larger-than-life image of the Captain and his Commandoes, Keshaara studied him carefully, not sure she really understood what this was all for. He was a warrior, and being lauded, but from what she could tell, he deserved little of it. He was a figurehead. Nothing more. He was hollow and presented as such in everything, but there were still people here fawning over him.

 She sighed, and turned her head, intending to leave and look at the flag again. The flag was pretty interesting at least.

 Keshaara made eye contact with a ghost.

 The place called him James Buchanan Barnes. The picture behind her was of him, standing beside Captain America, looking out at the people with the same eyes he now looked at her with. She looked at him and knew that name meant nothing to him any more. He was a ghost in the form of another being. Her eyes widened at his state of dress, but she said nothing. He looked at her, she looked at him. His eyes opened in shock, and she watched panic rise in him. Carefully, deliberately, she dropped her gaze from his and shook her head.

 She was not going to reveal him. His shoulders relaxed, and Keshaara tilted her head away from him, exposing her neck. It was an old Companion-greeting, a half-shrug that acknowledged the other person as a friend enough to not attack. Keshaara did not know if there was something similar in this world, but it seemed enough to convince the man that she was not a threat to him.

 Keshaara stood very still for a handful of heartbeats, and then looked back to where the ghost had been.

 There was nothing there.

 


	8. Bond

The Tale of the Dragonborn

* * *

After that…odd happening in the museum, Keshaara went about the other museums, visiting them less and less often as she learned from them. There was less to learn on the second and third trips, and while the natural history museum was still her favorite, she was starting to get odd looks from the docents and Keshaara was particularly leery of staying at the museums for too much longer because of all of the security cameras.

 Keshaara also had the trouble of trying to figure out where she would sleep. She was still, for the most part, homeless, and as much as she tried to avoid the police officers that liked to try and pull her into jail for booking. She had had to duck more than just a few of them in her time in this city. She could not provide identification and they would want it. She had to be careful.

 This world did work very different from Skyrim. She had no title to use to get out of jail. It had been good to be Thane, even if that occasionally meant doing banal tasks, because it meant she had not had to worry about being in jail for overlong without being forgiven for escaping. Escape from prison here, it seemed, carried far more weight than just the sort of bemused stares she’d get from the Jarls when she invariably ran off from their carefully constructed jail cells.

 So she was careful. She did not sleep in the same place the same time in a span of two weeks, she did her best to maintain her hygiene, washing her clothing and her body whenever she could. The extra clothing she had helped, allowing her to spend some of the money she scrounged together every week to do a single load of laundry. Someone had been kind enough to show her how the machines there worked, and while Keshaara marveled at the inner workings of the wall of things that existed only to eat money and clean clothes, she could sit in her looser clothing and still be comfortable.

 But with the lack of agents chasing her, the money she had been using to eat and get around was starting to get thin. She still did not need to eat as much as others, but there were more days than not where she would have to hold her hand against her empty stomach and push to try and get it to stop feeling so empty. When she had money, she bought the cheapest, warmest food she could find – pizza.

 This was odd to some, who gave her weird looks as she came into the local hole-in-the-wall pizzeria and ordered a large pizza “with a lot of meat on it” before walking out with the entire pizza, eating it all on her own. Keshaara knew there were cheaper alternatives, but the pizza was delicious, hot, and even when it started to get cold it was still tasty enough to eat.

 It was one of those days where she was lucky enough to get a pizza for herself, and she was walking towards the reflecting pool in the nice park with all the big statues and the tall penis-building. That was a nice place to eat pizza at, she had found, and she did not look so terribly out of place when she was there. There were always people eating lunch there, and Keshaara did like eating her pizza in a place that looked as picturesque as that.

 She was wandering, looking for a good tree to sit under when she saw a half-familiar form skulking beneath one of the trees she had sat beneath before. On an instinctual hunch, Keshaara walked towards the person. He was hunkered down small so as not to draw attention to himself, and had a baseball cap obscuring his eyes. When Keshaara sat next to him, he sat up quickly, looking at her as a hand strayed to his hip.

 “I have pizza. Do you want some?”

 The question was a simple one, and she held the box of pizza out to him at the same time she asked. He looked from her, to the pizza, and back to her, blinking furiously as he tried to figure out if this was a trap.

 “It’s just some pizza. You look hungry. Do you want some?”

 He blinked at her again when she flipped the lid of the pizza box open and gestured for him to take a slice. Keshaara picked a slice for herself and balanced the box on both of their knees as she ate the still-very-hot pizza quickly. She had forgotten how hungry she was as she had walked, but now that there was food in her stomach, it was hard to not think about how hungry she was. The first two slices were gone before she could really register the lessening of the gnawing in her gut.

 The man was still staring at her, and Keshaara self-consciously swiped the back of her hand across her lips, to see if there was any tomato sauce still on her face. There was not any, and she shot him a half-accusatory glance as she tried to figure out why he was staring. She frowned at him and took another slice of pizza.

 “If you’re worried about something, tell me. Otherwise, eat. You look like you’ve not had anything warm in a while. I saved up my money for this and I would like to share it with you. You look like you need it.”

 He stared at her for a long moment, and she stared back, unblinking and still.

 “I don’t want any.”

 “The offer stands. You may have any piece if you want it.”

 He did not move, either to take a slice or to jostle the box off of his knee, so Keshaara hummed a nonsense word under her breath, and continued eating. She looked over the reflecting pool, smiling at the children playing too close to the water as their exhausted parents gave up on stopping them. She smiled at the sunlight, and the trees, and smiled again at her partner when she saw him staring at her out of the corner of her eye.

 But she did not say anything to him, merely smiled, nodded, looked back down to the pizza and then back out to the people around them. After a while, about half of the pizza was gone, Keshaara was full, and she pulled some plastic bags out of her knapsack and put a few of the slices in there. She would eat them later in the week, when the pangs came back. For now, though, she was full enough to not feel like she needed to eat something RIGHT NOW, and that was good for the day.

 The remaining slices she kept in the box, and nudged the box over onto the other man’s lap before standing.

 She was not sure what made the next words come out of her mouth, but as she looked down at him, Keshaara was struck by the need to say: “I’ll see you here next week.”

 The man clearly was not expecting that, and gaped at her. Keshaara nodded to him, hiked the pack up on her shoulder and walked away. She had other places to be, and there was stuff to explore still. She would be back in a week.

 And so it went.

 A week later, she was at the same tree, balancing another box of pizza on her knees, eating a slice of her usual pizza when the same man came back and sat next to her, at a comfortable distance away. She ate, he looked at her, and she held the box out to him. He did not take any pizza.

 The next week, he did.

 The week after that he brought a small Styrofoam cup for her that matched the one she held, practically punching the cup at her hand, not caring when the very-hot liquid splashed over his arm. Keshaara took it, offered him the pizza and sat with him drinking the tea he had brought and eating the pizza. She asked what tea it was. He gruffly told her it was jasmine. She asked which tea he had gotten. He told her it was coffee. Black. Keshaara did not ask why he had brought her tea instead of coffee.

 Not until the next week, when he punch-handed the cup over to her again.

 “You look like you prefer tea.”

 He was not wrong. Keshaara had tried coffee. She liked tea.

 The week after, it was cold, and Keshaara accepted the tea happily, while handing an oversized warm jacket over to the man. He stared at the paltry gift and the smaller pizza, but accepted both the food and the jacket, and said nothing.

 Their friendship was a very taciturn one. They did not talk often, but that did not matter. The two of them would come, once a week, and share some food and some drink and the company of one another. There was an uncommon camaraderie between the two of them, but neither of them thought to talk more about it. Their meetings were a sort of…quiet reflection time for them both. It was not true socializing, not in the way the other people had. They did not talk about their weeks, they did not talk about themselves or even exchange names. They would exchange small gifts. Gloves, scarves, socks. Small things that you could buy with a little spare change. But they did not talk. Not really.

 One week, as Keshaara trudged through the crowds back to their meeting point, she had the trill of instinctual wariness raise the hairs on the back of her neck.

 She was careful not to alter her walking pace, and she kept her head low, the soft knitted beanie that he had given her a week prior pulled down over the tips of her ears, and her scarf pushed high up over the tip of her nose, to keep her warm. Something was wrong, and she was not certain what it was just yet, but there was a darkness brewing in the air, and Keshaara was certain she wanted nothing to do with it.

 When her friend was not beneath the tree, and the intensity of the instinctive shudders, Keshaara began her search. Her instincts had yet to lead her wrong, had yet to let her down, and she followed where they led her. She did not want anything to happen to him. He was delicate inside. Steel outside, spun sugar inside. He was broken and only just starting to get together and if anything happened to him, she was going to destroy everything that dared hurt him.

 As subtly as she could manage, she pulled her magic around her, and whispered the find-it spell, and directed it to find her friend. She murmured his name, not trusting to say it any louder than a barely-there exhalation. The spell rocketed away, outlining her path, and she followed. Keshaara had been in this city long enough to have a pretty good knowledge of what went where within its limits, but the light shone down alleyways and streets that she had not yet travelled, regardless. She followed, unerringly growing closer to where he was.

 The agents she had been dodging since she had first come to Earth were surrounding her friend. They had him cornered at a deadend alley, and were closing in warily on him. He had his lips pulled back in a great approximation of a feral snarl. Keshaara felt a surge of pride – the same pride she felt when the younger Companion-sibs finally found their fangs. The blood that leaked from a dozen superficial wounds slicked the ground beneath him, and that made Keshaara feel a surge of a whole new emotion.

 She snuck up on the circling agents, and knew that he had seen her. But, true to the form of those who know the dangers of fighting, he said nothing and gave nothing away. Keshaara…even out of practice, even with an aching, howling loneliness in her soul, was still deadly.

 The agents were dispatched. Efficiently. Brutally. Quickly.

 She stood over the quivering bodies, her knuckles barely bloodied, her own snarl in place on her face, and waited for her blood-rage to subside. Slowly, she turned to her friend, who was looking at her with something kin to shocked awe. Keshaara was used to this stare, and gave him a smile to disarm any worry.

 As she had done for Sif, she summoned the golden light of healing, holding her hand towards him so he could see the minor abrasions close over with the touch of the light.

 “Can I tend to your wounds?” she asked lowly, stooping down a bit so as not to appear as a threat.

 His eyes were wide with half-there understanding, and his gaze switched rapidly from her hand to her eyes. He looked ready to bolt, and Keshaara held as still as she could so as not to alarm him. She needed him to calm down so that she could tend to his wounds. When he nodded, Keshaara did not draw any closer to him, just waved the golden healing aura to him. He watched the wounds he had sustained close without even the slightest scar. Keshaara could not stop the pleased flush that rushed through her. She was still a healer. She could do that much. Good.

 He looked from his healed flesh to her, not speaking, but clearly thinking.

 “I have encountered these people before. They are hunting you as well as I.”

 He nodded, slowly.

 “I cannot stay here. They will know it was me, for sure. Or suspect. Something will happen, I am sure. I must leave.”

 He nodded, again, looking at the bodies she stood over. One twitched, and faster than the eye could follow, Keshaara directed a vicious axe-kick at the person’s neck, snapping it with lethal efficiency. Harming her was allowed. It was amusing, it was a hunt. But they had caused harm to befall one of the very few people she liked in this place and that was a death sentence. It was as it had always been with her.

 “My name is Keshaara. I count you amongst the first of the friends I have made on this planet. Should you ever find yourself alone and in peril, call upon me. I will come. I will assist you. You are my friend, and I will not let you come to harm if possible. Where I came from, we were once called Companions, wolves of the same pack. We would walk alone, but there were always those who would come to our aide if we needed it. I will be that for you, if you need me to be. The lone wolf can still have a pack.”

 He looked to her in shock, his eyes narrowed as if expecting a trap. Keshaara knew the feeling. She understood him more than she thought he could understand himself. Her life had been ripped from her once. She had been made into something awe-inspiring and terrible at the whims of another and used as a weapon. Keshaara saw an echo of herself in his eyes. She did not need to know his story to understand what had happened.

 “You do not have to call upon me. Only know it is an option. Thank you for the tea. And the hat. I like it.”

 She turned to leave, already planning her route. Keshaara knelt at the agents, rifling through their wallets, taking their money as she had all the previous times. Half of what she found, however, she left on the ground, a clear offering to her friend. Their opponents were dead, and half the bounty belonged to him. Her mind spun quickly, trying to plot out the best possible course of action to get to where she needed to go without causing too much trouble for herself. If the agents had been alerted, she would need to -

 “My... name is James. Thank you for the food. And for coming to help me. I appreciate it.”

 His voice was rough with disuse, and was barely louder than a whisper, but Keshaara turned back to him, and dipped her head in acknowledgement.

 “Any time, James.”

 She left, walking away towards the next stop on her journey. Perhaps it was time she went to introduce herself to the Avengers. Enough time had passed here, and the agents did not know where she was trying to go. That was good.

 Keshaara looked to the sun, smiled, and began the next part of her journey. She was going to New York.


	9. Blood

The Tale of the Dragonborn

* * *

 

Keshaara had a lot of time to think on her way up to New York. There was…well there was time enough for her to braid and re-braid and _re-braid_ her hair. There was time to think about what she had done to the agents. They had been the first people she had killed outright since she had gotten to earth. The others? She had merely incapacitated. Wounded, yes, removed from the field of battle, yes, but they lived.

  _Those_ people she had killed.

 She had killed them and for a moment, she had felt _good_ about it. Keshaara had killed before. Certainly her body count had been the thousands. She rarely ever felt bad about killing, about murder or assassination. She never felt bad about self-defense or hunting, but there was something in how she had dispatched those agents that unsettled her. Despite not knowing what it was that bothered her so much, when it was finally time for her exit the bus in the city of New York in the state of New York, Keshaara found herself not wanting to immediately go to the place where the Avengers lived.

 She wanted to wander a bit. Explore the new city, try and work the kink out of her back from sitting for so long, and try and let her emotions settle.

 Keshaara was the sort of person who could work through troubling emotional states one of two ways: she could either sit and obsess, picking her thoughts apart over and over into smaller and smaller pieces until she was finally satisfied with what she was thinking, or she could just… _move_ and keep moving until everything settled down inside of her and she could return to normal. Today she favored the latter option of coping. It allowed her to work out the energy that was bubbling up in her core.

 She kept her head down and walked, ignoring the pangs in her stomach. It had taken almost all of the money the agents had had in order to get to New York city. She had nothing left for food, not for anything approximating filling food, at least. Junk food was delicious, but it did not make her feel full. It just was something to eat, but it provided no sustenance. Keshaara did not like that.

 She was saving her money up for something with an appropriate amount of meat in it so that she could really sink her teeth into something. It may not be enough food to satisfy her, but it would give her teeth something to chew on and that would be nice. Hopefully, it would trick her mind into thinking she had eaten more than she had, but she did not know how that would play out.

 Maybe she would find another couple of dollars in change on the street. Then she could go to the grocery store and buy a roasted chicken for herself. They had had those in some places in the other cities she had been in. Even though Keshaara’s truest love was the pizzas, she liked the availability of cooked meats that she could buy for pretty low sums of money. That was good. But she wanted something a little more substantial than small slices of meat.

 Her stomach growled, loud and insistent.

 Keshaara patted her tummy consolingly, trying to send assurances to it that she would find food as soon as possible.

 “Hey! Miss!”

 Keshaara did not pay attention to the person. People talked everywhere in this town, loudly and at length, and often without being directed at any other human being in particular.

 “Miss! With the braids!”

 She looked up, and around. She did not see too many other women sporting the rather manic nest of braids she had chosen to pull her hair into, so Keshaara figured that ‘miss with the braids’ meant her.

 Turning, she tried to find the person who was attempting to gather her attention, only to see a strapping young gentleman in black waving her over. Keshaara inclined her head to him, and obliged by walking towards him. He was dressed…well. She had not had much time to understand the fashions of earth, but Keshaara liked how the rich emerald blouse he was wearing accented his Redguard-dark skin (Keshaara thought she should not refer to him as Redguard as that was something from Skyrim, and Keshaara was not in Skyrim anymore). She did not know how to refer to the clothes he wore, other than that they fit him very well, following the line of his body quite nicely.

 “Miss, if you please, this way.”

 He was very polite, his voice holding some of the sharp sounds of the local accent, but softened, somehow. He gestured with an arm to a door down the stairs from where they were standing. There was no signage over the door, and no matter how clean the door was, and how much she did not think this young man was trying to bring her to harm, she could not help the questioning arch of her brow.

 “It’s not like that! Oh, I’m so sorry, I completely forgot myself. Allow me to introduce my place of employment.”

 His apology was spoken clearly, and he hurried down the steps in front of her, careful to maintain a professional distance while removing himself from the area where he could be considered an immediate threat to her.

 Keshaara’s other eyebrow joined the first, high on her forehead.

 This was very curious. Very curious indeed.

 Her…escort beamed at her as she followed him down the stairs, into the darkened room. The man did not say much, merely walked in front of her through a dimly lit, velvet-lined corridor. Curious if her sense of what surrounded her was correct, Keshaara reached out to brush curious fingers across the walls. Whatever fabric covered them, it was soft, but it was not, specifically velvet.

 The labyrinthine hallway eventually opened to a large room, sparsely populated with people dressed far more elegantly than Keshaara currently was, but her escort only led her deeper into the place.

 “This is one of the most exclusive clubs in New York. Only a rare few people know where it is or how to get in-”

 “Then why am I here? I certainly don’t belong.”

 He turned his head to look at her, grinning.

 “I would not say that, miss. Your hair, your style, your _eyes_? Definitely worth being here. You have this…warrior elegance about you. My boss would kill me if I didn’t get you in here.”

 Keshaara made a face, and then looked down at her clothing. It was a hodgepodge mess of whatever she could find – tight black pants, the mid-shin-high boots she had stolen long ago, a loose dark-blue button up collared vest, the odd dirt smear, and then, there was only the morass of braids held up merely by some careful knotting and the few hair ties she had gotten in her travels. Hardly to the same level that everyone else in the room seemed to be at.

 “ _Riiiight_ ,” she drawled, unconvinced of his sincerity.

 He laughed, and adjusted his shirt.

 “Perhaps you could dress a bit nicer the next time you come by, but you look like the sort of woman that we need more of in here.”

 “And where, exactly, is ‘here’?”

 The smile she received in reply was wolfish.

 “Here. This is the restaurant portion, where patrons are free to mingle with each other, or simply observe. Back the way we came is the way out, as you could guess, further down the hallway leads past the private rooms for the patrons who wish for time…alone. Some have viewing rooms attached, if you would like to observe, and beyond the rooms is a dance floor that hosts our DJ and the occasional, more formal dances. You will receive invitations to those, I’m certain.”

 Keshaara stared at him, her eyes half-narrowed in wary acceptance of his explanation. Her gaze travelled briefly around the room, marking out the path back to the exit, and then the path to the dance floor. Her escort was briefly distracted by a woman who walked to him and whispered something to him. Keshaara waited for him to be done before opening her mouth to speak.

 “This is nice and all but I must lea-”

 “Miss, please, sit. One of the other patrons here has offered to pay for your lunch. We have a great chef here, and he will have your meal prepared shortly. Sit here, please,” he said, gesturing to the nearest booth-table.

 Keshaara started questioning him, but her stomach interrupted with a **loud** complaining gurgle. With a frown, she looked down at her traitorous gut and nodded.

 “Fine. I’ll stay and eat.”

 Her escort beamed and guided her to her seat. Keshaara scooted along the curved booth seat until she was safely at the apex of the curve, nestled deeply into the booth, sitting firmly in the shadows, waiting for her food and trying not to appear too grumpy with the turn of events. She was not averse to free food, or even being propositioned in exchange for food, but this whole event seemed very…overly easy.

 Keshaara’s instinct may not be indicating danger, but she felt like she was still missing something. It seemed so convenient to be found in the street like this, brought into a secretive club with some sexual undertones to it (she could smell the couple in the next booth, and the woman was doing a terrible job of faking her pleasure), and then someone just so happened to want to buy her a meal?

 She did not think that there was not some sort of trap behind all of this. There was something here. She was missing something, a vital detail, something she should have noticed but did not.

 Thankfully her introspection and half-there paranoia were interrupted by the speedy arrival of her food. Her escort had come back, bearing a tray laden with food. Keshaara did her best to keep from snatching it, but she _recognized_ that food. It was the sort of meal she would have eaten back in Skyrim: meat, potatoes, vegetables, gravy, _bread_. A whole loaf of it! And when she rapped her fingers on the crust it makes the _perfect, delicious_ sound she so loved.

 All her thoughts about this being a trap vanished.

 If this was a trap, so be it, she would die with a belly full of good food.

 “A drink, Miss?”

 “Just water, please. Tea if you have it. I like Jasmine tea…but water is fine.”

 Any gesture her escort makes is lost on her, and Keshaara turns her full attention to the food. Her stomach growls when she does not eat fast enough, and soon, she is finished with the first serving, and was asking for the second. Her escort beamed at her, and brought her the tea and water she had asked for. Keshaara ate until her stomach stopped that dull ache of emptiness, and then ate until she was truly no longer hungry. It had been far too long since she had eaten her fill, and it seemed that this odd place was more than willing to tend to her appetite.

 Keshaara only slowed her pace as she felt her stomach finally fill. Her metabolism would take care of the sudden abundance of food within a pretty short order, but for the moment, she was just thrilled to be _full_.

 The remnants of her meal were taken away, and she was left in blessed, lovely, silence. The other patrons went about their business, some walking back to the rooms that her escort had indicated to her, others walking away, leaving the establishment.

 Keshaara watched in a half-interested daze, blissfully happy that she had a full belly and no one bothering her. Hell, if this club continued to treat her so well, she would indeed come back more often. The food and the absentee patron who bought her the food was a grand event.

 Slowly, she scanned the area, looking over the sorts of men and women who would come to this sort of establishment.

 A flash of green at the corner of her eyes drew her attention.

  _Wildfire eyes. Green eyes, black hair._

 Her heart stumbled, skipping a few beats. Her damned mind jumped a thousand steps ahead and whispered “ _Loki”_ to her. Keshaara had to force herself to focus properly. The black-haired man who had _definitely not green_ eyes was staring at her, two other women draped across his lap. The green must have been from her escort passing by. The man staring at her only had a passing resemblance to Loki. The same sort of jawline, and high, pronounced cheekbones, but he wore his hair in a dry, grungy, unkempt halo around his head, and had his clothing half-off already.

 Keshaara stared overlong. He noticed, and smirked at her.

  _Damn even the smile is the same._

 She was not stupid. Loki was dead. She knew that. She knew that in the visceral way people who have lost a limb know that the appendage is gone. Loki was dead. Loki was dead. Loki was dead. Loki was **dead**.

 That did not stop her heart’s skipping when the man disentangled himself from the women he was entertaining, adjusted his half-open shirt, brushing a ring-bearing finger over the long chain that hung from his neck, buttoned his pants and left his belt hanging open.

 That certainly did not stop the way her mouth went dry when he stalked towards her. She did not know how to react, but she was pretty certain open-mouthed gaping was not becoming, or even the slightest bit useful.

 The facts remained that Keshaara was sincerely affected by the man approaching her, and she could not deny that.

 He came closer and she saw his eyes were the color of the deepest red wine. The hint of fang in his mouth did not rouse any feeling of danger. Part of her _wanted_ this man to be a vampire, even if vampires did not exist on earth, because it would further remove him from Loki.

  _Divines **yes** , _was just about the only thought she could muster when he stopped at her table, smirking down at her. His fingers pressed some hidden button on the side of the booth, and all at once the table that had been offering her some small amount of distance from him was gone, sinking down into the floor.

 He pulled the curtains (she had not even noticed that there were curtains flanking her booth – there could have been someone waiting to kill her there how did she get so bad at this) closed behind him, bathing them both in shadows. When he flicked the lights on, Keshaara was still seated, legs crossed almost as tightly as her arms were. The urge to touch him, to run her fingers down the curve of his jaw to see if it felt the same as Loki’s had, to press to either side of his throat and make him gasp, to trace down the lines of his ribs and see if she could feel the barest edges of the scars she had gifted to Loki, to wrap them around his wrists and hold him down so she could bury her face in his neck and breathe his scent in to disassociate this man from her Loki…it was impossible for her to deny.

 Her fingers itched, twitched, and the damn man smirked at her some more, standing with his thumbs in his pockets, hips canted forward, back arched away.

 Keshaara swore artfully under her breath in Morrowindish.

 “Well it certainly isn’t often that I hear such florid cursing in a language I don’t speak.”

 His voice was more muted than Loki’s, softer and deeper. A damned good timbre to make her cunt clench and breath hitch. Keshaara had to bite her tongue to keep from another round of cursing. The scant lighting caught on the chain he wore, and Keshaara had the _very_ irrational urge to run her tongue across where the chain draped over his collarbones.

  _Control yourself._

 “I take it you are the kindly patron who chose to pay for my lunch?”

 “Early dinner. But yes. You strutted in here looking hungry. I thought if I could slake one appetite…”

 He let the sentence hang in the air, leering down at her. Keshaara felt the muscles low in her gut tighten and returned the leer in lieu of a verbal response.

 Willing to test her theory, she slouched down in her seat, and leaned her head back, exposing her neck and doing nothing more than staring at the man through lidded eyes. She knew, even without the steady beat thundering in her ears, that her heartbeat was pulsing with enough intensity to make the skin over her jugular jump.

 It really must say _something_ that she **liked** seeing the man’s eyes fixate on where her pulse thumped, that she **liked** watching his pupils blow wide with desire, that she **liked** how he reached for her. He was a predator – it was clear. His fangs were long and sharp, and when he opened his mouth to gasp at her, the teeth glittered.

 “Did you just want a plumped meal for yourself?” she purred.

 He laughed, and stepped closer to her.

 “I would have not put it that way.”

 “Then I suppose it is a good thing _I_ did, isn’t it?”

 Still smiling, he reached up to rub his fingers over his chain. The light shone off his ring again, making the purple stone in the ornate band glimmer. Keshaara’s gaze barely even dipped to the ring. She did not care about that ring. She wanted to feel his fangs in her neck. She wanted him to pin her down and fuck her.

  _I need to look at these urges more in-depth sometime later._

 He curled his finger at her, and Keshaara licked her teeth, but did not move.

 “You cheeky _minx_ ,” he growled at her.

 The sound only stoked her burning need, but Keshaara only grinned wider and remained still. She was new to this realm and had yet to really engage in anything sexual, so she did not want to jump into something that meant something different here than it did back at home, but she could not deny the desire in her blood.

 “Just so.”

 It was the only way she could think to respond, but it made the man with her in the booth groan and fall to his knees at her feet. Keshaara bit back her gasp. He pulled her legs apart and pulled her hips to the end of the cushioned bench and leaned up into her, rising up so that he could rasp his fangs fruitlessly over her hipbone.

 Keshaara groaned through her teeth, and uncrossed her arms so she could reach down to grab the man by his hair and pull him up to her face.

 “You need to tell me right now if you’re a vampire who is going to try and kill me,” she whispered, staring into his eyes and praying that there was no hypnotism in earth’s vampires.

 “Half right, my darling. Half right. Vampire, yes. Through no choice of my own. A delightful woman afflicted me with the curse, but I do not kill my prey. Especially ones as beautiful as you.”

 Keshaara knew better than to believe him. He purred at her, pressing the side of his face into her palm, and stared at her. His red eyes swirled and she could feel the compulsive need rising in her. Hypnotism was well and active then. Excellent.

 Her cares fell away, and her head lolled back. In a single surge of movement, he had his mouth slanted across her neck, fangs just barely pressing into her skin. Keshaara moaned louder than she thought was appropriate, but it did not matter when she surrendered to the desire that was rushing through her with every frantic thump of her heart.

  _Need. Want. Please. Pleasure. Need. Want. Please. Pleasure._

 Every heartbeat was a pulse of lust, and when her partner switched their positions, sitting where she had, and having her kneel between his legs. She looked up at him, her own desire dictating what she was going to do next.

 Keshaara crawled into his lap, straddling him and grinding herself against his already hard cock. It was his turn to groan, grabbing her hips and pulling her tighter to him. She hardly recognized when the first kiss happened, only that during it, his fangs split her lip and then _he_ was moaning and jerking his hips up against her.

 “Gods, yes, _more_ ,” he growled, and then he was grabbing her carefully plaited braids, yanking her head to the side and sinking his fangs all the way into her neck. Just for a moment, and then he was licking the blood away and kissing her again.

 Keshaara grunted at the pain, but then the pleasure washed over her and she was keening her pleasure as he sipped blood from her lip and kissed her breathless. He pushed between her shoulderblades so that she was completely flush against him and incapable of doing anything other than kissing him deeper.

 Their kiss only intensified, his tongue delving deep into her mouth. Keshaara had tasted her own blood before, but somehow it tasted better when it came into her mouth on his tongue. He kept her held close to him, incapable of pulling away for breathing or taking a moment to try and gather her thoughts and Keshaara did not give a shit. Kissing him was all she needed to do. His lips on hers, his fingers gently pulling her braids, his hand holding her close, and best of all – the friction as she slowly rocked herself up against him.

 She came away from their kiss for just a moment, and he took the chance to bend his head down to worship her neck again, leaving hesitant bites and dark bruises as Keshaara began whimpering platitudes, and then moaning them as he continued the very pleasurable assault on her senses.

 “Divines, _yes_!” she screamed when his fangs breached her skin. Need scorched her very core and she –

 “Bite me _more_ , deeper, please! Fuck me, damn it all! Sink your fangs in to my neck and hold me down and _fuck me_. Fucking smug prick, stop sitting there and smirking at me and fucking pull your divines-damned cock out and shove it down my throat so I don’t have to look at your fucking face.”

 Her partner moaned into her neck, pulling her almost suffocatingly tight to his chest as she ground down against him. Keshaara snarled at the cessation of movement and wriggled one of her arms free of his grasp enough to pull his own hair back, expose his neck (it was not Loki it was not Loki she was seeing things those were not her fang marks beneath his ears it was the other woman’s because **this was not Loki** ) and bite him back. She did not summon her fangs, but bit him with blunted teeth, grinding down on his lap and pulling on his hair until he grunted.

 “You’re really fucking bossy for a meal.”

 “You really should have taken better care who you chose then.”

 Keshaara did not relinquish control of this kiss, flexing some of her magic to fling his arms out away from him, pinning them to the comfortable leather back of the comfortable leather booth-seat and _holding_ him there. He _moaned_ , long and low, looking up at her when she pulled away. His mouth was smeared with her blood, and Keshaara took in his utterly debauched state. Her heart felt like it was going to burst. He looked _so much like Loki_.

 She took too long staring at him.

 He flexed his hips up, and the sharp lance of pleasure that followed that simple movement had Keshaara collapsing back down onto him to kiss him desperately. She had always had such a vivid imagination – courtesy of sitting in darkened cells waiting for the dawn and a rescue that may not come, courtesy of a life that was never quite what she wanted – and it was so _easy_ to convince herself that he smelled like the one she had wanted to love, to convince herself that the way _his_ soft gasp sounded was the same as **his**. It was all too easy to fall into the fantasy.

 She grabbed him by the collar of his half-open shirt and pulled him up, not caring about the way it twisted his arms and his half-there hiss of discomfort. For a breathless second she stared at this vampire from Earth and willed him to look like Loki, willed for him to _be_ Loki, just long enough to stop the aching in her heart. But the red eyes did not turn green. The hair did not smooth and shorten, the stubble did not vanish, the fangs did not recede. He was not who she wanted, truly, but he would do.

 He whimpered when she bent her head to rasp her teeth against his jaw, and Keshaara nipped the half-there-beard-scruff’d cheek with just enough force to cause some manner of pain. Her hands were still on his collar, and she yanked him closer to her, not caring that it hurt him. Her blunted teeth sunk into the flesh beneath his ear, biting down hard enough to make him squirm and gasp again. Keshaara rolled her hips against his, pulling him by the collar still. She wanted to feel something deeper, she wanted to make the thoughts hovering in her mind go **away** she wanted -

  _This was not Loki._

 She kissed him again, slanting her mouth across his with a hunger that could make Famine jealous. There was a burning in her heart, a deep suffusing loneliness, and even if was just for the vampire to have a meal, and for her to relive the motions of being happy for just a while longer, it did not matter. She could lose herself in this moment and pretend. The pain was for later, for now she had…this.

 He twisted and bit her throat. Keshaara snapped her head back in an offerance, the pain and pleasure from whatever magic the vampire had washing away her doubts and worries.

 “As soon as you let me have my hands back, I’m going to pin you to the floor, pet. I’m going to make you _scream_. I’m going to sink my fangs into your flesh over and over and over again and there will be no way for you hide what I did to you. Everyone will know you were with me. And when you start to go weak, when I’ve had so much of your blood that my stomach is full and my hunger slaked, and you are so overblown with the pleasure I give you, I’m going to undress you and fuck you.”

 Keshaara moaned, trying to cut the sound down when she realized how loud she was going to be. She had never quite managed being a “quiet” lover. None of the people she philandered with in the past had seemed to mind (Loki had wanted to make her scream his name until Asgard had fallen around them, probably to show up his brother but she really had not cared), however, she did not know if that was appreciated here as well.

 “Oh, no, my pet, I want you to scream. Your voice makes the blood sweeter, and the power I can already taste in you is only amplified when you call out.”

 She blinked and for a moment, her magic faltered, and then his hands were on her. He leaned back, and pulled her with him, pulling her head to the side and biting her all over again. He bit her, drinking her blood all over again, and she groaned again, tipping her head away from him.

 “You better make good on your plan, vampire. I expect you to fuck me, and when you’re done, I expect you to get on your goddamned knees and lick every last drop of your cum out of my cunt. I will not be walking around dripping your remnants, so help me.”

 He chuckled into her neck, pulling his fangs from her flesh only long enough to whisper his reply.

 “I’ll eat very well then. I’m going to fill you to the brim with my cum, starting with that pretty little mouth. But after I’m done ramming my cock down your throat, I’m going to pound into your cunt and fill its greedy depths. Then yes, I will press my face to your cunt and lick you clean.”

 Keshaara chuckled, and then moaned as he dipped his head down to bite her wrist. She gasped as her blood drained from her, the numbing magic working at lulling her into a pleasant lustful haze. She needed him. She needed him. She _needed_ him. She must have panted words to that affect, because her partner was laughing with her, pulling his fangs out of her wrist and licking the wound until there was no blood on her skin. Keshaara keened her want at him, not even certain if she was using words anymore because the desire was too great for her to parse.

 She would look at this need later, she would rationalize it later, she would look at it later because she needed him right _now_ and there was nothing else in her but that need.

 He picked her up and laid her on the long, very comfortable bench, covering her body with his. Keshaara squealed her delight and arched up into him, pressing her lips against his in a desperate, hungry kiss. He did not bite her this time, just ran his hands down her body, to pull her shirt up her body, to unbutton the shirt, to press his hands against her hips. He kissed her…softly, whimpering something unintelligible beneath his breath and against her lips.

 Keshaara wriggled out of her shirt, and with her partner’s help, got out of her bra (handy things, those), and then they were working on his shirt, which he manage to get off pretty well on his own as he continued to kiss her with tongue and teeth. His affections drifted down to her neck, where bruises and pinpricks of blood still oozed. He kissed her there, beneath her ears, along the side of her throat, down to her collarbones, where he bit and nipped all over again There was blood, there were gasps and moans.

 Keshaara grabs him by the chain around his neck and pulled him back up to kiss him again, her hands reaching down to fumble with the button on his pants, palming his cock through the fabric. He groaned into the kiss, and did his best to pull away from her to return the favor on her own jeans. Keshaara only pulled him back up, tightening the chain around his neck when he struggled.

 “Come now, _pet_ , you have to kneel before we can continue. Kneel down for me.”

 Keshaara snarled and tightened her grip on the chain, choking a laugh out of her partner.

 “I kneel for no man,” she hissed.

 “You did suggest it.”

 Her huff was half-annoyed and she pushed him back up off of her. He made a confused sound around the clinch of the chain, but Keshaara pushed him further, until he was lying on his back. It took but a few second for her to yank his pants down around his ankles and seal her lips around his cock. The shock of her assault and the speed of it all caught him off guard and he howled as Keshaara set about bringing him to a screaming orgasm within moments.

 She swallowed his cum down, not minding the taste at all. Keshaara lifted her head up, her lips still wrapped around his cock. Her partner’s skin was flushed, damp with sweat, and he was covering his eyes with one hand. His chest heaved and he peeked at her from beneath his lashes. His pupils were blown out wide and his teeth were bared in a grin.

 “Hmmmmmmm?” Keshaara hummed, still licking the cock in her mouth.

 “ _FUCK!_ ” was all he could force into coherence.

 He surged at her, and in one fast movement he had them both naked and Keshaara pressed into the cushions of the booth again.

 “You _goddamned bitch_ , I am going to _ruin_ you for that.”

 “Fucking try it, vamp. Show me what you’ve fucking got – _aaaaahn_.”

 He certainly gave it a grand showing, pulling Keshaara flush against him and pounding into her. She screamed her pleasure, arching underneath him, presenting a beautiful target for her vampire paramour. He savaged her breast with a bite directly over her nipple, drinking her blood from that most delectable of parts, and Keshaara whimpered, still moving her hips to meet his own out of needy desperation. The next thrust had her throwing her head back with a screaming moan, and he quickly switched targets, lunging upwards to bite her jugular and drink her blood anew. She did not care about all the blood at this point – she had lost so much of it to the hungry vampire that it was actually becoming hard to think through the bleary haze that plagued her mind.

 “You’re so fucking wet, you mewling bitch. You’re sopping wet for me, slut. _Gods_ you’re dripping everywhere. You wanted this so badly you could not wait for me to do this to you. You _want_ this? You _like_ this?”

 How he managed to talk with his fangs in her neck, Keshaara did not know, but it did not quite matter because she was whining over the filthy words pouring out of his mouth. He pressed a thumb against her clit and assaulted it brutally, overloading her with so much pleasure that she came almost shamefully quickly.

 He groaned into her neck.

 “Your blood tastes like ambrosia when you cum. Do it again. I want to own all your pleasure, you skank. Do you understand that? I want you to cum again. I want you to cum when I tell you to, every goddamned time. I want every. Single. Time. I tell you to cum to be shortly followed by you screaming for me, and your cunt clamping down on me.”

 She could not help it. She howled her acquiescence, cumming again and again and again for him. He grunted as she tightened around him. The slick sounds of their fucking filled the air and Keshaara was practically certain that every other person in the restaurant could hear them, but she really did not find herself in the position of caring. He was fucking her brutally hard, leaning back and bracing a leg on the floor so he could turn her on her side, lift one of her legs wide and fuck her from an entirely new angle.

 He was fucking careful to keep his thumb on her clit as he fucked her from the new angle, rising up on his knees, forcing her into an awkward side-bend and letting him hit a deeper, different part of her in an entirely pleasurable new way. He turned his head to the side and sank his teeth into the meaty part of her calf, just to feel the muscles there jump in time with Keshaara’s next orgasm.

 Keshaara could not even keep track of how many times she came by that point. Her would was a blister-point of pleasure and hazy half-awareness. The bloodloss had simplified her mental capacity to react to multiple things at once, and as such – she only felt pleasure. His words were not actually _registering_ with her, she could just hear the timbre of it as he fucked her. His teeth were a counterpoint of pain in the pleasure, and it just pushed her higher up the plateau of pleasure.

 Every time she came screaming, he would twist her into a new position, and every time she thought she was done with being able to cum any more, he would prove her wrong. Keshaara was completely unaware of how many times he had cum, and could not say for certain if he even _had_ after she had first surprised him. Her world spun down into absolute pleasure and nothing more, and she blacked out.

 It was only for a few seconds, she was certain, but when she came to, her vampire had repositioned her into a seated position, with her legs spread wide, and he was diligently working at licking her cunt clean. His tongue felt longer than _~~Lo-~~_ any of her other lover’s tongues had, and she could feel the barely-there press of his fangs on her outer lips. She buried her hands in his hair and weakly bucked her hips up against him.

 He grabbed her by the hips, and held her down as he went back to his work. His licks were alternating between quick and slow, long and short, deep and shallow, and Keshaara was edged towards another orgasm. Right as she crested the point of no return, she felt the needle-sharp pinpricks of his fangs right at her flesh, and her orgasm shattered her all over again.

 It took her a long while to catch her breath, and in the interim, her vampire accomplice was busy licking his face clean, running his fingers over the parts of his chin that his tongue could not reach, then licking those fingers clean. It took her longer still to stop her head from spinning and regain some semblance of balance, enough for her to stand on her own.

 The vampire nudged her clothing towards her and she dressed slowly, not bothering to demonstrate her ability to heal the wounds that now dappled her body, just dressing with the fucked-out languor of someone who had , indeed, been fucked-out. The vampire took a few minutes to dress himself and Keshaara had to force herself to avert her eyes from him. She was too tired to fuck him again. She was exhausted.

 “Go easy, pet. You’re going to be woozy for a while and I don’t need you staggering everywhere."

 “I’ve got it. Don’t worry about me, good sir vampire.”

 He huffed at her, and angrily put his shirt back on, adjusting the collar so it lay flat. Keshaara rolled her eyes and stepped forward to adjust the clothing for him. He blinked at her, trying to judge what she was doing before responding.

 “Seeing as you just let yourself get fucked by some random vampire in a strange club in a city you’ve not been to before, I can’t say that I trust your sensibilities. But that is not my concern.”

 “You are correct. I’m not your concern. Thank you for the meal.”

 She rapped her fingers against his slightly distended belly. He winced, and stared at her, his hands coming up to cradle his stomach. Keshaara offered him a wan smile, and jerked him close to her by the chain around his neck again.

 She bit his lip savagely, drawing blood harshly enough to make him wince. And with that, she was gone. She parted the curtains, located the exit, and walked out, not making eye contact with any of the other club goers or acknowledging her escort who directed a wolfish, pleased smile at her, and then she was gone, out into the early evening of New York City. The feelings that she had tamped down while being fucked came back, roaring at her for her infidelity to Loki’s memory, and Keshaara was too tired, too fucked, too achey to even try and care.

 There were better things to do. Like find somewhere to sleep for the night.

* * *

 

Far back in the club, still sitting in a darkened booth-room that stank of blood and sex, the vampire sat back where Keshaara had been laid out moments before. He rubbed his bloated belly, confused as to why he had drank so much of her blood when he had never had any intention to actually indulge. But as soon as he started, he could not stop. Her blood…he understood the hunger she had spoke of now. He could undo the small shapechanging he had done to afflict himself with the curse she had once had, but he had not wanted to right away.

It was a pleasant feeling. Her magic warmed his belly, singing in her blood, humming her pleasure at him still. He could feel her walking now, like a bright spot in the darkness around him.

 He kept up the soothing movements over his over-full stomach. For a moment, his eyes flickered green. He would have to leave soon. But for a few more minutes, he could relax here and revel in the aftereffects of being near her. Just a little bit longer.


	10. Thoughts

The Tale of the Dragonborn

* * *

 

 It took her a few blocks of walking for the hypnotic bite-magic of the vampire to fade from her. The pleasant haziness began to fade, slowly replaced with the sort of half-painful sting of an overstretched muscle, which gradually began to morph into a sharp ache where his fangs had been in her.

 “That’s…less than comfortable,” she said to the air. It was not particularly important that she made note of this, but it seemed like something to _say._

 She did not want to heal the wounds, she did not want the bruises to fade, and soon as those thoughts filtered through her now slightly-more-coherent mind, Keshaara shook them away. Her clothes did a good enough job of hiding the golden light that flashed around the wounds, sealing them. The blood loss was a slightly longer process of healing, but she could handle that easily enough.

 Why she had been so enraptured by the vampire, she did not know. Part of her wanted to say it was because he reminded her of Loki, and even the barest shadow of Loki was enough to make her drop to her knees in thanks, but the other part of her (the deep and dangerous one that howled and screamed nothing but fury) said that _that_ was stupid. She had bedded people for less than a passing resemblance to Loki before, she had had meaningless sex with people, she had done far worse things with strangers and just because she had dallied with _this_ particular stranger in a manner that was…stranger, it did not _mean_ anything.

 It did not. Mean. Anything.

 Convincing herself of that was a task of hours, as Keshaara walked and mulled actively over what her mind was obsessing over. It was practically impossible for her mind to not constantly re-re-re-play what had happened in that odd club She wanted to dissect every moment, she wanted to understand every last possible aspect of what had happened, but reviewing something so inherently pleasurable was more frustrating than helpful.

 Her imagination kept spinning off on wildly inappropriate tangents, covering topics from “why don’t we go back there right now and show him _our_ fangs” to “what if that **was** Loki” and everything in between. Keshaara did not know whether to be exasperated by her imagination or enthralled by it, but it certainly made her otherwise boring walk through the new streets of New York that much more interesting.

 She walked aimlessly, not really paying attention to much anything other than when it was appropriate to cross the street (she had learned from earlier escapades that the crossing of the streets here was something very important to pay attention to) and the slowly fading sunlight. Darkness fell oddly in these big cities, with the skyscrapers blocking out the sunlight much faster than anything else could. Keshaara told herself that she would look at the buildings around her in more detail the next day. She did so love looking at skyscrapers, and New York City had so many of them! There would definitely be some fascinated staring tomorrow, she told herself.

 For now, though, she just wanted to walk.

 And she walked for a good long while, actually. New York City was very large, and just as lively at night as it was during the day, if not more so, it seemed. People rushed just as before, except now, everything was colored over with the harsh street lights and the bright white and red of the car lights. Yellow cars zipped past, executing movements on the road that Keshaara considered pretty dangerous, but seemed pretty common here. Every so often, someone would scream some manner of obscenity and make what Keshaara assumed was a rude hand-motion, for whatever slight they had just experienced, but that, too, seemed pretty banal.

 No one reacted more than a cursory glance to ensure that they were not the interloper causing the other person distress, and sometimes, even if they were, it did not seem to be a real problem. This place seemed as if no one person was really concerned with any other person, which was interesting and hilarious to Keshaara. Everyone wanted to demand respect and an ease of movement and to obtain what they wanted right as soon as they wanted it, but did not seem as if they wanted to offer the same courtesy to those around them.

 The hypocrisy of their actions was actually supremely amusing to Keshaara, who found a place to sit and watch the crowds late into the night, when it seemed as if there was a near-lull in the action. She was not tired, not yet. Probably a side effect of the fucking and bloodloss and healing magic or something. Keshaara was not super interested in trying to figure it out. She was not tired, and she was comfortable in her spot. She could stay where she was, and watch the rhythm of a day in this place in relative comfortability It was a soothing thought, a familiar exercise she would have indulged in back in Skyrim every few decades, just to compare how the world had progressed without her.

 Here, it was just to understand how this particular place worked. It was very different here on Earth. People moved differently, walked and talked differently, and while she did not need to truly blend in, she wanted to understand. There was a rich tapestry of life in this area, and she wanted, desperately so, to understand it and wrap herself in it. She was never going to truly “be” from Earth, just as she would never have truly “been” from Asgard, but she wanted to understand Earth better, since she had committed herself to living on earth in her loneliness. Asgard would have had Loki beside her, would have been different.

 Now, she was alone. Now, she had to learn differently than she would have had to do in Asgard.

 Now, she maybe missed Loki all over again, and wanted to have him close to her once again. Just for a few seconds longer. She could go on and live forever if she just had a few minutes longer with him. That would be enough. That could be enough.

 Keshaara sighed mightily and looked down at her booted toes.

 No, it would not be enough.

 It could not be enough.

 Having even one second more with Loki, and then knowing she would again have to lose him would destroy her. Her mourning had nearly killed her the last time, and she was unsure if she would even _want_ to live through such an ordeal ever again. Mourning was never meant to be easy, but she could not have expected it to be so hard. Skyrim had dirges that spoke of that sort of pain.

 She had been a bard, a member of the Bardic College, a singer of songs great and small, surrounded by the music of the histories of her world, and she had always looked askance at the songs of love that was deep and desperate enough to bring the mightiest beings to their knees. She had chuckled under her breath when she had read the lyrics that spent ages extolling the most minor of their attributes. She had disregarded the stories of mourning, the wailing and grinding of teeth, the people who walked around like draugrs in a daze because their beloved was gone, thinking them nothing more than hyperbole.

 That was, of course, until she and Loki had…been them. Been with each other, been the pillar for the other, been whatever it was that they _were_ to each other.

 Now she understood both the joy of the love-hymns, and the sadness of the dirges. She understood them and hated the understanding. It meant so much pain to understand what it all was, and Keshaara could not go back to the time before this had happened to her. That power was beyond her, and she was not certain she would, even if she could. Loki had made her painfully, blissfully happy, and she was uncertain if undoing what they had done, what they had been for each other…if that would be worth it.

 She shook her head, and looked up. This was not a fruitful thought path. It did not matter.

 What had happened, had happened. She could not undo it, so thinking about the infinity of “what if’s” did nothing other than make her heart hurt all over again.

 Keshaara turned her gaze back to the people in the streets. The moon was high in the sky, barely peeking over the tips of the skyscrapers that surrounded her. She felt nearly claustrophobic in that moment looking up at the unfamiliar sky. With all the time she had spent on Earth, she could not look up at the stars without feeling the sharp sense of loss, and an even sharper slap of sadness. Seeing the stars nearly blotted out by the skyscrapers and pollution in the air somehow did not make her feel any better, regardless. The stars were still there. They were still different, and she was still alone.

 She sighed, trying to dispel the dogged loneliness. This was not something she needed to do. This voluntary exile to Earth was meant to take her mind off of Loki, not remind her of him at every single turn of her head.

 Having emotions about this sort of thing was _exhausting_.

 Rolling her shoulders back, Keshaara slouched down into the bench she was occupying, trying to get the slightest bit more comfortable in the wooden-slat contraption. No matter how she twisted, it seemed like, somehow, the bench always managed to find somewhere to dig into her back, or her ribs, or her arm or shoulder, or somewhere else that made sitting in the position unbearable.

 Grumbling darkly, Keshaara stood up and glared down at the stupid fucking bench that was mocking her with its damned uncomfortableness. It should not be possible for a simple bench to be so uncomfortable, but here it was. Uncomfortable. Impossibly so.

 The itch of wrongness, of impossibly unbearable irritation, continued though. Keshaara shifted her body, pulling on her shirt to see if it had accidentally stuck in any of the wounds she had hastily healed. Nothing. There was no reason for her to be standing on a well-lit street in the middle of the night, surrounded by the nightlife of New York City and feel like the world was closing in around her and fingers were pressing into all of her soft spots and that she was about four seconds from exploding.

  _Unless_ …

 Keshaara whipped her head around, narrowing her eyes and directing her gaze back to the stars. She opened her senses up, closing her eyes at the same time, to shut out the extraneous information that her eyes provided. There were only very few times where she felt like this, and it was usually the aftereffects of one of her Companion siblings running into trouble. She had no Companions who lived anymore, and only one person here who knew her as anything other than that orange-eyed “hobo”.

 She frowned and turned her head. Was that what it was? Was _he_ in trouble?

 «KESHAARA»

  Her magic curled around her, invisible to the eyes of all (excepting any mages, but Keshaara had not seen any other mages in her time on Earth) and again, alit upon the path that would take her to the one person who had been given that name and told to use it if there was an emergency. The nagging sense of wrongness, of discomfort? That was her magic’s ability to tell her when someone was calling her name in desperation. When she had given James her name, and the permission to call upon her in a time of need, she had allowed his magic to alight upon him, in case of him ever needing her in that way.

 Now, it was clear she was needed. This was a time where she did not have the luxury of knowing the area, of knowing who was who, and who would needed to be paid off or told she was a Thane. But she had meant it when she told James that she would come if he needed her.

 He needed her.

 She would go.

 Her magic guided her, leading through alleys and down roads she had no right to know how to find, leading her towards her destination. She knew she was getting closer when the feeling of discomfort great more intense. James was close. Keshaara had known that already, but why he happened to be in the same city as she was, was for the moment, a mystery. It was not an important mystery to solve just yet, but it was a question she would want answered sometime in the future.

 She jogged as the sensation grew more intense, not wanting to lose James to some sort of problem she could not yet see.

 The alley she was passing through opened onto the street, and when she turned her head to follow the path her magic outlined for her, she was greeted with the sight of a skyscraper that bore a large ‘A’ on it. It was a magnificent skyscraper, and something nagged at the back of her mind when she saw it. A half-remembered memory told her that she had seen this building before.

 Regardless of whether or not that was possible, her magic made it clear.

 James was in that building, somewhere. And he was in distress. She needed to get into that building, and then out of that building with James, all without alerting whoever was holding him that she was doing so.

 “Easy enough then,” she mumbled to herself, and Keshaara began to think. There was a way to get this done, she knew. It was just time to find what that could be.


	11. Infiltrate

The Tale of the Dragonborn

* * *

 

As she had done countless times before, Keshaara began the very important procedure of casing the place she was trying to infiltrate. This was a little more intense than trying to break into the Blackbriar’s home to steal a horse and the associated papers for it. She did not have the advantages she had had back in Skyrim. Keshaara had only encountered security systems the one time on Earth, and while she had not been trying to be stupendously sneaky, she had still managed to set pretty much every alarm off because of the way she chose to disarm her captors.

That would not work so well here. She needed a little more finesse than just running through the entire building and hoping that she would find James eventually. The fact was that if she wanted to get James, she needed to infiltrate without being detected, and then get him out without running into anything…major. That would probably be exceedingly difficult, given she did not know the layout of this particular skyscraper, nor where James could be within it _nor_ how the security in it was set up.

Keshaara chewed her lower lip nervously, narrowing her eyes at the building. There were no obvious ways in other than the doors, but doors were a nonoption because they were _so_ obvious. She could not very well walk into that building and casually walk over to where they were holding James and walk him out of there.

Well, that was the _ideal_ , but that was just not going to happen. Nothing ever went that well.

She sighed.

Stealth was all but lost to her. There was no truly stealthy way to get into and out of that building. Not without a week to prepare and information gathered and the thousands of other things that needed to be considered before she even came close to being prepared. She did not have that much time. With the way the tingling in her arms and legs was going, Keshaara did not know if she even had the few minutes she was taking to try and understand the building’s layout.

James was in _trouble_ , and he wanted her to come get him, to help him, to do something. She had to move.

If she could not ensure that she was not going to be harassed on the way in or out, and if she was not allowed the luxury of time to better understand the potential security measures and how they would stack up against her innate magic and sneaking, she was going to make sure that everyone who was on guard in there was looking the wrong damn way when she went in.

Keshaara took a deep breath in, looked up and up and **up** at the building she was going to infiltrate, and sent her magic out.

First, a pulse of electricity, enough to disrupt and blow out the streetlights around her, which sent the masses of people who seemed to gather around every conceivable place to scatter, and then, a quick scattering shot of ice sent around the building to shatter windows at multiple points and at different levels. The lights in the building flickered, unaffected by the electrical pulse, but definitely was affected by the sudden breaking of the windows.

She wanted them confused, she wanted them looking for an invading army, she wanted them to look for something that was not _her_ so that when she crouched down, vanishing from sight, and began edging towards the closest door. Keshaara knew better than to open the door or break a window where she was actually entering, and a soft “Feim” put her in the realm of the ethereal and she was through the door.

Her magic guided her, and while she could not move as quickly as she would, perhaps, want to, she was still moving at a decently good clip. Her shortened shout wore off within a few more minutes, but by then, she was already deep into the building, following the path her magic wove for her. She needed to get to James. That was her only real concern. People rushed past her, shouting into plastic boxes that crackled and snapped with the disembodied voices of other people.

Keshaara considered her next course of action carefully. She needed these people in a panic, yes, but not so much so that they would go looking, specifically, for James. None of the words they were shouting necessarily indicated that they knew she, specifically was here, or that they even knew the nature of the attack that was being wrought upon them. But Keshaara was ever leery, and did not want them to think to turn towards her any time soon. She needed to get James out. That was her priority.

So if she needed to be underhanded with her magic again, she had no qualms about doing just that. Illusions scattered throughout the area, dancing at the periphery of sight, urging the people who searched for intruders to think of them as being anywhere but where _Keshaara_ was. It was a dastardly simple spell, and took practically no real effort to cast, but it kept Keshaara cloaked in near-anonymity merely by virtue of no one thinking to be where she was. There was something – someone else, somewhere else, and that was all that mattered to the agents.

They had a mission to complete.

Keshaara did, too.

Keshaara had the advantages of being an unknown, not going where they clearly thought she was going, and, well, magic. There was no way for her to not get to James, she just had to be careful about revealing where she was planning to go too quickly, in case the agents managed to put together what she was attempting to do.

There was a moment, as she slunk down the stairs, deep into the basements beneath the tower, that the fear of these people being the same people who had tried to hold her captive and who had attacked James, but that moment passed almost as soon as it came upon her.

These people did not act the same way as those people had, and while they were certainly not pleased with whatever she was doing (or so she surmised from the very lengthy curses that poured into, and out of, the plastic boxes they all carried), they did not bear the same sort of malice in their hearts that the other agents had. They were doing their jobs. Whatever reason they had for keeping James, whatever reason they harbored for what they were doing, it was not a reason that was born out of malcontent.

That realization was only half confusing. It did not matter if these people literally shat out rainbows. James did not want to be here, he called to her to take him away because he was scared or being held against his will or _whatever reason_ he had, and Keshaara had told him that if he needed her, she would come.

He needed her.

She had come.

The nature of the arrangement required this. He needed her, and she would come. There was nothing else for her to do about it.

She followed her magics outline, moving ever-closer to where James was. As much as she wanted to hurry, to make sure he was whole and hale, she had to maintain the appropriate amount of caution. Being caught now would be horrible. To be so close and fail would probably send her into a fury.

Keshaara would not fail her new and only friend. She would save him, she would take him away from here. That was her purpose.

The magic led her to a door deep in the basement and, after checking to see what sort of alarms could be on it and realizing she did not know enough about the electronics on Earth to disarm whatever sort of alarms and traps were on the door, whispered “Feim” once against and slipped through it. Still in her deep, sneaking crouch (and ignoring the burn in her muscles from the exertion of holding such a deep stance for so long), Keshaara edged towards her final destination.

James was strapped to a very uncomfortable-looking chair, straining against the restraints that held him. His mouth was covered, keeping him from screaming, but it did not require any sort of foreknowledge of him to see that he was in deep distress. Keshaara checked the area first, careful to search for cameras or pressure plates or whatever else could be there. Nothing was immediately apparent, but Keshaara did not trust that particular assessment of the situation. She would have to move quickly.

As soon as she revealed herself, there would be a limited time to get out before everyone in the building was alerted to her and James’ escape. Again, she found herself worrying her lower lip between her teeth, trying to do her best mental gymnastics to understand how fast they would have to move, and in what direction, and how quickly, in order for them to both escape. Or at the very least, for James to escape.

There were no good options. They were deep in the bowels of the building, far from the surface, and the only way up and out was through the building itself. These were not the catacombs of Skyrim, where you could move easily from one place to another and get out from underneath one house to end up somewhere completely different. There was one way out. They would have to be fast.

Keshaara took a deep breath in, and then stood, shaking her left leg out to dispel the almost-there cramp that had started in her leg.

“James,” she whispered, advancing on the bound man.

He tensed, straining against the constraints that held him down, his eyes wide and panicked.

“James, James, calm down. It’s Keshaara. I came for you, calm down.”

She rested a hand gently on his arm, green light flickering around her hand. It was a simple calming spell, one she had used dozens of times before, but the way James looked at her, his dark-ringed eyes suddenly going glassy and unfocused as the magic coiled around him. His body went slack, his body losing all tension all at once, and he sighed around the gag.

Keshaara took her hand away from him, letting the magic slowly fade away.

“Are you well enough to move when I release you? We don’t have much time and I won’t be able to keep both of us invisible for long. We have to move quickly.”

James stared at her, looking down to her hands.

“It was a calming spell, just to soothe you a bit. Very minimal magic, no afteraffects at all. I merely wished to ensure that you would be well. Do you feel ill?”

He shook his head, but stared. Keshaara nodded and went about freeing him from his constraints. James stared at her, not moving and breathing heavily. Keshaara could see muscles jumping beneath his skin as he tried to ready himself for whatever came next. She did her best to ignore the alarms screaming in the distant background, not wanting to think about what that meant for their escape attempt.

That was not what she needed to worry about in this moment. James was her priority, and everything else she could handle above and beyond that.

James was free, and stood under his own power, staring at her with some manner of awe. Keshaara cocked her head to one side, and listened, trying to discover if there was anyone trying to come and close in on them.

“How did you do that?”

“Magic. I am not from Earth. My home world is far from here, and I cannot go home. That does not matter now though. I can tell you the story later. For now, though? We need to get out of here, and we need to do that now. The people here know that something is happening and if we do not move quickly, we will be trapped.”

James looked at her, his brows furrowed. He was obviously confused, and Keshaara offered him a wan smile.

“You called me, I came, as promised. I will protect you and we will escape. I promise, again, to see you safely to wherever you wish to be.”

“Why?”

Keshaara frowned, and looked at him.

“I said I would.”

James huffed at her, and crossed her arms.

“But why.”

“Wolves of the same pack. We help each other, where I’m from.”

“I’m not a wolf.”

Keshaara laughed, turning back towards the door. Her magic burst forward, knocking the door clean off its hinges with a loud screech of metal and a burst of smoke and fire. The alarms were loud, and nearly drowned out Keshaara’s reply to James:

“Your eyes disagree, brother cub.”

She nodded to him and gestured out the door.

“Let’s go.”


	12. Abscond

The Tale of the Dragonborn

* * *

 

Keshaara led James through the path she had taken to get down to where he had been held. He stared at her, and she did her level best to not turn her head and stare back at him. There was a more pressing issue other than dealing with any questions he had about her abilities. She had promised to save him, and for now, that was all she was concerned with. Her curiosity about why he had been brought here and bound by agents that were not the ones who had first come for them both, and his curiosity about everything that was confusing about Keshaara would both have to wait.

They must escape first.

She guided him through corridors and up stairs, never pausing or showing hesitation in her movements. They needed to move quickly, with determination, and if all things held together and nothing went wrong, they could make it to the street before anyone noticed that they were on their way out because without her sneaking cloak in place it was incredibly likely that someone would see them and try and sto-

Keshaara stopped, reached backwards to James, pulled him close to her and flashed a shield around them. An arrow deflected off of the shield, clattering loudly to the ground. Keshaara whipped her head to backtrack the flight of the arrow to whoever had shot it at her. She had no idea why a place like Earth, which seemed to have moved so far from the sort of weapons she was accustomed to would have an archer lurking in a building in the middle of one of the largest cities she had been in, but that did not matter.

There was an archer. She needed to take care of that.

“Stay here, James. I’ll handle the archer. Hold still, please.”

She took a step away from James, put the strongest shield she could summon in place around him, and then crouched back down into invisibility. She heard the archer hiss and move somewhere above where she and James were. Keshaara stilled, and looked around, using her all of her senses to locate the archer, who was undoubtedly doing the same thing.

Advantage: Keshaara.

She snuck up behind the man with sandy blond hair and eyes that were as keen as a hawk. The bow was broken with a quick crack of the ethereal dagger she summoned. She severed the bowstring for good measure before pressing the blade to his throat.

“I do not want to have to kill you. Please do not make me do so.”

A single bead of blood travelled down the length of her shimmering dagger, and her victim swallowed heavily against the weight of the magical blade.

“I will accept a nod as your acceptance of the terms. I will not harm you, merely bind you and leave you where your companions may find you. I do not want to kill anyone, but I will if they force my hand, do you understand?”

A nod.

“Do you accept my offer? Your life will remain your own, but I cannot let you come after us.”

Another nod.

Keshaara withdrew the blade slowly, wrapping magic around the archer. He shouted his surprise, twisting violently against the bonds that appeared out of nothingness to wrap around him.

“Hush, it is nothing dangerous. I will hold you still until we are out of the building. It is a banal magic. I said I would not harm you, and I did mean that.”

The archer opened his mouth to call out, and Keshaara was quick to direct magic to snap his jaw shut and hold him still. She made sure he was lying down as comfortably as anyone could when their arms and legs were bound straight to each other. She stole his arrows and rifled through his pockets to see if there was anything useful.

“Thank you, for cooperating.”

She bobbed her head at the bound archer who looked at her with confusion and anger. He gave an ineffective struggle against her magic and Keshaara grinned wolfishly at him.

“Feel free to struggle, but the magic won’t come undone unless I tell it to. That is the nature of the archmage. You will be safe, fear not.”

She nodded again and then jumped back down to James. She dispelled the shield around him, nodded to him and gestured.

“We move forward now, come on James.”

He gave her a queer look, and stared upwards at the subdued archer who was still struggling vainly against the bonds that held him.

“Magic. I’ll explain it later. Come along now, please.”

Manners, always manners. Keshaara prided herself on being polite in these sorts of circumstances. Snark and sassy commentary could wait until later. She needed to be polite for now, because the friendship was new, and the situation required her to be polite until she knew enough to be comfortable with James in that sort of way. Besides, her snarky back-sassing could backfire on her if she misjudged someone’s humor. No need to upset James right now in the middle of a crisis, at least.

She gestured for him to follow along again, and he did, still keeping his eyes on the bound archer, who was making muffled sounds of shock and anger as Keshaara drew away. Together, she and James continued their long, arduous hike back towards the door that would lead to their safety.

Keshaara first gathered something was wrong when there were no other agents in their path. On her way down, she had had to dodge countless groups of people in nice suits (as she had learned they were called) who were rushing hither and thither to stop her, and now it seemed as if there was no one even remotely interested in her and James, except for that archer.

The realization put her on edge.

There was something going on, _again_. Apparently Earth was just as chock full of weird circumstance and hair-raising subterfuge as Asgard and Skyrim had been. The thought did not exactly bring Keshaara comfort in this time of escape. She had to keep James safe and it appeared as if the people who owned this building had suddenly changed the rules on her. Granted, if she was the one in charge of the building and a prisoner, she would have done the same thing – if someone infiltrated, the previous setup was clearly flawed in some significant way and it needed to be changed as fast as possible in order to keep the infiltrator from escaping. So, in some small manner, she appreciated what had been done.

In every other manner? She hated it. Now she had to contend with even further unknown circumstances while still maintaining James’ safety…it was not an easy task she had set for herself. James needed to escape, and that was not something that would be accomplished if –

Her shield went up almost a fraction of a moment too late to catch the bullet. The projectile grazed her arm, and Keshaara lashed back with a bolt of magic. It was not necessarily a killing blow, but the pained cry that sounded out let her know she had hit someone. Keshaara, again, threw a shield around James and rushed to where the sound had come from. Her own shield deflected the next bullet wide, forcing a singing richochet off the wall.

A woman with hair as scarlet as the setting sun was clutching her stomach, one hand still holding the gun.

“Hello,” Keshaara offered with a polite nod of her head.

The woman stared at her, her eyes flicking rapidly between Keshaara and James, as if trying to gauge what was going on. Keshaara did not think it would be so awful to let this woman know what was happening. She bound the woman as she had done the archer, restraining her with gentle enough magic so as to not be uncomfortable, nor easy to escape from.

“James is my friend. He did not want to be here. The archer is bound similarly to you. I will not harm him or you, I just want to get James out of here. I made a promise to him. Let me heal your wound. I had not meant to harm you like this.”

The gold light danced around the wound, and the scorched flesh was soon whole and pink all over again.

“Magic, you know,” Keshaara explained before the confusion came out of that woman’s mouth as well.

“Did you hurt Clint?” she asked before Keshaara could cover her mouth.

“No. I did not. He is bound and waiting for me to escape. I will not hurt you or him, I promise. I just want to get James free, as I had promised him I would do. I must disarm you so that you cannot hurt me or him, but I swear on the things I hold most dear, I will not hurt either of you in my escape from this building.”

The woman stared at her.

“I don’t believe you.”

“Feel free not to. The fact remains you cannot escape my magic and you’ll have to wait to discover that I am not lying until I leave this building.”

The woman narrowed her eyes and struggled against the bindings that held her. Keshaara offered her a small smile and nothing more before turning away and returning to James’ side.

“We should carry on now, James. I do not know what else they could throw at us, but if these first two are any indication of what may come, we may have cause to worry. We should move, in case something else comes along.”

James gave her an odd look, clearly expecting something else out of her, and only getting that little bit? Did not give him the peace of mind that he had been searching for. Keshaara knew what she was doing, or at least gave the impression of such that he could not help but follow along behind her. She moved with grace and strength, her head making minute ticking movements from side to side as she tried to listen for things she could have missed.

Her footsteps were silent as she carried on, and James was only the slightest bit louder than her. Keshaara was the epitome of a predator, moving effortlessly through the still-unfamiliar surroundings. She was exceedingly careful to maintain her silence, so as to not have to work on blocking out the sounds of her body. James she could accommodate for, but that was because he was the only one making noise. Her own cacophony on top of his would have made it nearly impossible for Keshaara to hear the next layer of defense that was apparently in place in this building.

She rounded a corner, knowing there was someone on the other side. Keshaara held one hand back to cover James in a shield once again and turned to face the person who was clearly waiting for them.

A man stood there, shoulders hunched and hands in his pockets. He peeked up at her with a wan smile on his face. Keshaara held very still, not sure what the appropriate reaction to this would be. He was expecting her, clearly, but he was wearing clothing she recognized as being casual in Earth’s clothing culture. She could see no weapon immediately available on his person, and while that did not mean that he was completely unarmed, the lack of an immediately visible weapon only put her further on edge instead of helping her relax.

“Hello,” she offered softly, bowing her head shortly, just to be polite.

“Hi. Can you not try and get out? James Barnes needs to stay here, for his own safety.”

From behind her, Keshaara heard James hiss some manner of curse and she felt him recoil against the shield she was using to protect him. Fearing for James’ safety if he felt constrained as he had been when she released him, Keshaara dropped the shield from enveloping him, and instead put up three separate ones – one at either end of the hallway they were at, blocking anyone else from coming into this particular part of the building, and then one in between her and James, keeping him safe from anything this person could try.

The sudden hum of the shield, and the appearance of the silvery-purple barricades drew a very unusual response from the man. He made a shocked sound that quickly morphed into a pleased hum when he reached out and touched the shield furthest from Keshaara and James.

“Fascinating. How are you doing that, if I may ask?”

“It’s a shield, or warding spell. Depends on which teacher you asked back home, really. Combination of an illusory spell and a high-level defensive magic. The same sort of spell is warped to create the summoning-bound weapons I occasionally use. To what I can understand of your world, this shield will also deflect gunfire along with the arrows and hostile spells I used it to defend myself against back home.”

“But how does it work?”

Keshaara laughed.

“I take it you are not a mage. It is hard to speak of to someone who is not a mage. I can take the time to explain it at a later time. If it would please you, or your companions that I’ve already subdued with a different version of a similar spell, I can return here some time in the future to discuss it, but I promised James that I would see him safely out of here. He does not want to be here, and called me here to accomplish that end. I am sorry, but I do not have time for this.”

The man looked at her oddly, a half-smile on his face. For a moment, his brown eyes flashed a bright, sickly green. Keshaara drew her head back quickly, her eyes narrowing for just the briefest moment before she forced herself to relax. Doing something stupid now would only endanger herself and James.

“I am not a mage, you are correct. But I can’t let you pass.”

“I would prefer if you did not make me put you down. Just let us pass. I will go through you if I have to, but I do not want to have to harm you. I just want to get him out. If you want me to stay in his stead, that is also acceptable. But if you cannot let James leave, I cannot abide by that.”

The man smiled at her.

“Admirable. But we don’t always get what we want.”

“You don’t know much about me, so that is, perhaps, not true for everyone. Stand aside or be moved aside.”

“I think you might find that to be more difficult than you anticipate.”

“I think you still don’t know much about me.”

The man turned his head slightly, and Keshaara did not hesitate. Her magic roared in her ears and for a moment, the world around her was a maelstrom of white, green and black.


	13. Negotiate

The Tale of the Dragonborn

Keshaara shook her head, not entirely certain how she had managed to get out of that particular fiasco with the man who was more than just a man without losing an arm. She was accustomed to the werewolves and were-creatures of Hircine’s making, and of the making of those who aspired to be _like_ Hircine, and she had had some small encounter with what Loki had called _berserkir_. But that had been…very different.

He had roared, howling rage and fury at her, and while it was easy enough to calm him as she had calmed the angered beasts of Skyrim, she had still been shocked. She was still shocked, actually. That was not anything she had ever seen before, and while Midgard was very different from Asgard, and definitely different from Skyrim, it was _too_ different. Keshaara shook her head, trying to get herself to focus back on the task at hand. The beserkir…whatever he was, was handled, restrained and put under the strongest calming spell she could muster from a distance. If he surprised her with another transformation, Keshaara was unsure if she could defend both herself and James from him without severe collateral damage to the building.

Still, she pressed onwards. James wanted to be gone from this place, and it was therefore her responsibility to see him to safety. That was what she had to focus on. That and nothing else. James was her sole priority.

A song started out of nowhere, blaring out of speakers that were overhead and clearly set to play obnoxiously loud –

Shoot to thrill, play to kill  
Too many women with too many pills  
Shoot to thrill, play to kill  
I got my gun at the ready, gonna fire at will

\- and that was quite all she needed hear.

The speakers exploded in a shower of sparks, and the music cut out all at once. Her magic sparkled in the air around her, and she sneered at the destroyed machinery. James chuckled behind her.

“Do you not like rock music?” he asked gruffly, his voice rough from disuse.

“It’s distracting. Someone is using it to disguise their approach.”

“Quite right, sweetheart. Would you consider maybe letting Autumn stay here?”

Keshaara turned her head to regard the iron suit who was hovering in the air. At first, she thought it was magic, because he reminded her of the dwemer automata, but nothing in her senses sounded off of him in a way that suggested magic. It was not powered by a soul gem like the automata had been, and so Keshaara was stuck looking at him, trying to consider what it could be.

“James asked me here to see him out of this place. Therefore, no, I cannot let him stay. Unless he has changed his mind?”

Keshaara looked back to James, an eyebrow raised in question. James shook his head, and Keshaara turned back to the iron suit with a grin.

“Sorry, no luck there. Please step out of my way, or be made to move. I don’t want to hurt you.”

He laughed at her, gesturing back where she had been.

“I don’t think the others agree with that.”

“They are uninjured, and restrained. Anything beyond the moment when I left them is not my problem. Step aside or be moved aside.”

“Can’t do that.”

“Then you will be moved.”

Her magic materialized into a line of weapons, hovering in the air, merely waiting for the moment where they could be used to attack. She was ready, her magic blistering the underside of her skin, just waiting for a chance, a moment, a breath in between breaths to be unleashed. She did not want to hurt anyone, and she definitely did not want to kill anyone (they chimed _blue_ not _red_ and she was loath to kill anyone _blue_ ) but she was not going to be stopped. Not by this suit, or whoever was piloting it. Not by anyone.

“You might have a tougher time of that than you think.”

A new voice. She turned her head to _that_ voice, her lips curling backwards. The man from the museum stared back at her. Captain America. Steve Rogers. Keshaara flicked her attention to James, and saw the man frozen in place, staring at the Captain as if he had been struck.

Keshaara reacted almost immediately, her magic roaring, magnifying to an intensity that was awe-inspiring to see. The line of weapons splintered into a shield of swords, splitting the air on the edge of ten thousand blades. Her exhalations were fire, and lightning curled at her fingers. The ground trembled beneath her feet, fractals of ice spinning outwards from her body and she let the bloodsong rise in her chest.

“Stand _down_ ,” she snarled, her voice rumbling from somewhere deep in her chest. “Stand down or I will put you down and walk over your bodies.”

To their credit, neither of the men in front of her blanched or showed fear, but Keshaara did not need fear. She did not need them to fear her. Their fear would only make them slow, uncertain, stupid. She only wanted them to understand what they were up against. She wanted them to know who they challenged. Her power mantled about her, splitting the air with arcane power. She was the archmage and she was not to be stopped. Not by these people. Not when they were threatening James, not when they wanted him to do something he did not want to do. Never. James was her only friend here, and she was not going to let these people hurt him.

The one in the suit lifted his hand, a circle of energy glowing in his palm. Keshaara knew it to be a threatening gesture and reacted as appropriate, stepping into a defensive stance. A blast of energy shot out of the man’s hand, and splintered against her ward-spell, scorching the earth at the base of the spell, but coming no closer. The mask across the face of the one in the metal suit kept her from reading his expression, but the way he took a step back made her sneer.

Captain America hefted his shield and charged, thinking that somehow that would penetrate her ward spell.

But Loki ( _ ~~her heart stuttered and stilled~~_ ) had been practical when he had decided that she could not use her ward spells when defending him as Champion. Her ward spells were impenetrable. He bounced off the very solid wall of her ward and landed ungracefully on his ass, staring at Keshaara with his eyes wide.

“Is it my turn now?” she asked, her voice rising a few octaves in mock-falsetto.

The ward spell dropped for but a moment, and that was all it took. Ice rose in screeching pillars from the ground, obscuring Keshaara and James from view. She darted backwards to grab his hand, and then pulled him forward with her as she charged. She just had to get him out of this place. They had to be close to the exit, or there would not be two people here when there had previously only been one.

James tugged on her hand, and she released it, interpreting the movement as one uncomfortable with the gesture. She did not want to unnerve him. She was trying to help him. Not hurt him.

“Just stay close, James,” she called over her shoulder, whipping her magic around her to keep both of them safe.

The one who heralded his appearance with obnoxious music blasted her ward spell, clearly trying to shatter the spell and get at the squishy beings beneath it. Her spell, of course, did not falter, and outside the spell, her magic still swirled in spires of ice, lightning and fire. The barrage was enough to keep the two distracted as she and James made their way to the exit. Granted, it took a lot of energy, and Keshaara no longer was limitless. There was a time constraint to their escape now.

If they did not move fast enough, Keshaara would not have the energy to keep from having to wound the people. Because she still did not want to harm anyone. She wanted to escape without having to kill anyone else. These people were not the ones who needed to die. They just were trying to do what they thought was right, and that was all well and good, but James wanted to be somewhere else, and Keshaara was going to ensure he managed to do just that.

They were making headway on their escape, charging along the path that Keshaara had seen and remembered. Smoke and fire and ice and ozone scented the air, and the sounds of battle clouded any hope of hearing someone clearly.

But she managed to hear it perfectly when –

“Championess Keshaara!”

Her magic dropped, vanishing in a split second as she recognized the one who spoke. Keshaara snarled, snapping her attention to the newest attacker. Her world focalized down to him and her. James called out to her, reaching for her hand to pull her out of the sudden state she was in. She tore her hand away from his and pointed threateningly. Her rage had not needed any further kindling, but here it was, and it was turning her burning passion explode into pure fury.

“Thor. Are you with these people? Are you keeping James here, too?”

She advanced on him. Keshaara dropped all her spells, releasing the others she had conquered and left behind to better prepare herself for handling Thor.

“Keshaara, what are you _doing_?” he asked, looking from her, to James, then to the other two. “Man of Iron! Captain! Relent! I know her.”

“She attacked us first!” the suit-man said, pointing accusingly at Keshaara.

“You all attacked me first, and I am here to free James. He wanted me to take him away from here, and that’s what I am going to do.”

She was still tensed for battle, waiting for Thor to make just one wrong move. Mjolnir was at his hip, non-threatening as he tried to mollify the situation. He had his hands up, trying to keep the situation from escalating. For one part, at least, he was trying. That did not make Keshaara actually want to forgive his presence, but she did not want to immediately murder him. She had his name. He was no threat to her. But if he was going to attempt to be one, she would end him. It would be easy.

She would _enjoy_ it.

“Now if that’s all, I’m going to be leaving. James is coming with me and if you try and stop me, I’ll put you down.”

Keshaara took a step towards the door, but the Captain intercepted her, standing in her path, his eyes narrowed. She mirrored his sneer, baring her teeth in a vicious snarl. A deep growl started in her chest, reverberating through the air, a threat that could not be denied.

“Move yourself Captain. Now,” she snapped. Her temper was hanging from the barest thread and if she was not going to be given recourse to murder Thor, she could throw this particular nuisance across the room instead.

“Keshaara, we cannot let him go free. He is being hunted-”

“The same people who hunt me hunt him. The same people who said you told them that I was coming, Thor. The ones who were waiting at the site of the Bifrost, who assured me that they knew you and you had sent them specifically to greet me. The ones who then tried to restrain me, who tried to drug me, who attacked me when I wanted to leave. The same people, in both instances.”

Thor looked at her, his brows furrowed.

“I told no one of your arrival. I had suspected you would one day come to Midgard, but I told no one, not even my fellow Avengers about you or what happened. I swear it, Keshaara.”

“You know your words mean nothing to me, Thor. I named you oathbreaker, and I meant that naming. Swear all you want, it means nothing to me.”

Thor looked appropriately chastised, averting his gaze and trying to find words in his great cinderblock of a brain to explain what he had meant. Keshaara could feel the gazes of the others on her back, and when sound came from behind her, she turned her head only enough to see the three people she had already handled rushing back into the room. Now there were six potential enemies, and only one of her to protect the one who needed protecting. James drew close to her back, facing the others who came in, pressing his shoulder to hers in a gesture of protection.

Keshaara appreciated that much. James readied himself, and Keshaara did the same, her magic curling defensively around her hands. If she had to fight to get him away, she would do so. James did not want this, so she would not allow it to happen.

“Stand down and let us pass, please.”

She could at least try and be polite as they were surrounded. Thor looked from Keshaara to the others, his hands coming up to try and be placating. Keshaara stared him down, waiting for the moment when something was going to happen.

“Can we talk about this, Keshaara?” Thor asked, his voice low.

“We can talk when I am certain James is not going to end up strapped down to a chair and a prisoner. I would gladly offer myself in his stead. If you need a prisoner, let him go free, and I will remain behind. Not that you will be able to actually hold me, but I will make a promise to not escape if I am assured James is allowed to come and go as he please.”

“We can’t agree to that.”

“Then get out of my way.”

Thor reached for Mjolnir, and Keshaara thrust her hand out, _pushing_ the hammer away from him, sending it flying through the wall. She stood tall and still. She was not going to take the first strike. She would not dishonor James and what they were doing by acting inappropriately. If they wanted to fight, they would have to start the fight. She only wanted peace.

“We can’t do that.”

“Then we have a problem.”

“Keshaara?”

James turned to her, tapping her elbow with one of his fingers. She turned her head so she could regard him. He looked at her, and then to the Captain and the other surrounding them.

“Don’t. I don’t want them to fight us.”

She blinked, and nodded once. She relaxed her magic, letting the preparations fall away, and dropping her hands down to her sides. James had her full attention, and not even the threat of attack was enough to take her mindfulness away from him.

“Then what do you want to do?”

“I don’t want to fight.”

“Do you want to stay here?”

He shook his head.

“Would you stay if I stayed with you?”

There was a moment as he considered the idea. Keshaara allowed him all the time he needed. The others were quiet as well, which Keshaara appreciated immensely. No one reached for weapons or did anything inherently threatening, so she felt comfortable giving James her full attention. She wanted to make sure that James knew that she was only concerned with his comfort.

He nodded.

“Very well. I will stay. If at any time you do not want to be here, tell me, and I will make sure you are freed to go.”

James gave her a small smile. Keshaara beamed at him and shook the residual magic away from her.

“Thank you.”

“Of course, James. Anything for you.”

 


	14. Settle

The Tale of the Dragonborn

* * *

 After the uneasy truce was declared, she was guided carefully through the huge building, up stairs, around corners, down hallways. Keshaara was silent, following and observing as they lead her and James to the new area of the tower. James did not say anything to anyone, just stuck close to Keshaara’s left side, shrinking away from the others when they came too close to him. Keshaara did her best to not appear as if she was on guard, but she was. She was not going to relax until she was absolutely certain that nothing was going to hurt her or James.

Well…she was really more concerned with James. Keshaara was more than confident that she could defend herself against anything these people threw at her. But James was fragile. He was steel on the outside, but he was delicate inside. Like a building just being constructed, he was piecing himself back together, setting up scaffolding, holding himself together with temporary measures until he had enough of himself back that he could stand on his own again.

He was a sib to her now. He was the one last thing she really had, and Keshaara was never going to let anything tear him down. James was the one thing she still had for herself.

 _For a moment, she thought of the vampire_.

Keshaara shook her head. The vampire was a single occurrence. She had thought about going back to that club, but it was a thought that was fading fast. It was not proper. It really wasn’t. She didn’t want to think about his red eyes or how he had looked like the one she had hoped she had loved, or how his teeth had felt in her skin. Or anything else that had happened. Keshaara had succumbed to a weakness, a new fault in her psyche, a new angle for someone to try and manipulate her through.

Her mouth screwed down into a frown. Would Thor guess this weakness of hers? Would he understand, would he seek to use that knowledge against her as soon as he understood what Loki had meant to her? She was not worried for Thor knowing, not truly. He was not a threat to her. She had his name. But Thor had allies here, and if they sought to harm her, she could not stop them all in the same way she could stop Thor. And if he spoke too freely of how she had felt for Loki, she was unsure if she would even want to fight them. Loki was a sore spot.

She did not like this renewed revelation about herself. Loki, even in the suggestion, was enough to drive her to near distraction. Keshaara shook her head and sighed, forcing herself back intothe present, the here and now so that she could actually pay attention to what was happening. James was still at her side, walking silently, his head tucked low, and hands nearly clenched at his side.

Keshaara knew that touching would do him no benefit. James was prickly about his personal space and she understood that. He did, however, need some manner of comfort. She summoned her magic, wreathing her left hand in the calming green spell, but she did not direct it at James. No, Keshaara merely held her hand out to the midpoint between she and James. It was an offer, and nothing more. If James wanted, he could –

He reached out and took her hand immediately, his grip tight. Desperate. She let her magic flow to him, and he bit back a sigh. Keshaara let him hold onto her as long as he needed to, never stopping the gentle waves of calming magic she projected. He clung tight to her hand, and Keshaara held on to him carefully.

“For as long as you need me, James,” she whispered under her breath , squeezing his hand to offer comfort.

He took it greedily, not releasing her hand for a moment. None of the Avengers commented on their quasi-intimate gesture, though Keshaara could feel their eyes on them. Their judgement meant nothing to her, personally, as she had no stake in ensuring that they thought kindly of her. Only that they would never think unkindly towards James. Let them guess, let them suggest and infer, it did not bother Keshaara. If James showed discomfort with the situation, then Keshaara would do anything to cease his discomfort.

“Keshaara, this would be your room.”

The red-haired woman extended a hand to the door to the left. The floor they were on was nearly completely empty, with only the stairwell they had come up from making a landmark. There was no paint upon the walls, no tiles on the floor, no pictures upon the wall. Keshaara looked at the door in this strange area, narrowing her eyes. She remembered the last time she had been offered a room. She remembered Dόmhildr. She remembered the start of her time in Asgard, and then, the end of it. She shook her head to push the thoughts away. That was not helpful in the moment. She needed to be in the here and now.

“Where will James be staying? I would prefer to remain near him. In case he needs me again.”

She watched as Captain America’s mouth twisted into a frown. James had yet to take his hand away from hers, and he gently tightened his grip on her. Keshaara did not move her attention from the other woman, but briefly squeezed James’ hand to let him know that she was not going to abandon him. They would not be separated. She would not allow it.

“His rooms are closer to Steve’s. For his own comfort.”

Keshaara narrowed her eyes briefly, focusing her ire on the woman. The other did not quail beneath her stare and Keshaara respected that. Immensely. It was not easy to stare Keshaara in the eye for even a moment.

“I would like to know where, exactly, that is, then.”

“Up two floors, and about four doors to the left of the elevator. JARVIS can tell you how to get there if you get lost.”

Keshaara nodded. That was good enough. She’d figure out what an elevator was later. She knew where James would be. That was enough. She turned to James, and cupped his hand in both of hers.

“If you need me, call, James. I will always come for you. I promise.”

He nodded, looking down at their hands. Keshaara patted the back of his hand affectionately before letting go.

“I will see you later, then, James. Please be well. I will be here if you have need of me.”

She took a step away from him, allowing him space to move as he saw best. He nodded, but did not say anything to her then. Keshaara inclined her head in a small bow, and reached for the handle on the door to ‘her room’. The door opened easily, and as the other Avengers looked on, Keshaara looked into the room. She heard murmuring from behind her, and before she crossed the threshold into what was going to be her quasi-permanent living area for the foreseeable future, she turned back.

The man who had turned into a monster had stepped closer to her, and the others, including James, had walked on. Keshaara made a face at him, unsure of what was going on, but not entirely pleased with the implication behind the group leaving him with her.

“Am I to be watched, then?”

“Tony says he doesn’t have any cameras in the private rooms, not even the ones on this floor. So no, not in there,” he said, jerking his chin towards her room.

Keshaara’s only response was a tight nod.

“I just wanted to talk to you. That’s all. My name is Bruce Banner.”

“Keshaara is the only name I have worth note. Why have you chosen to stay behind – what did you want to talk about?”

“Perhaps we could talk about it in your room, Keshaara? I do not think it would be the best decision to have this conversation out in the open.”

“As you say.”

Keshaara crossed into her room, holding the door open a moment longer so that Bruce could follow behind her. She took stock of the rather large room she found herself in, and quickly realized that –

“No one has lived here before.”

Her statement was more for herself than anything else, but Bruce still chuckled from behind her.

“You are very astute, and correct. This entire floor has not been used yet.”

“This building happened to have an entirely empty floor? Convenient.”

Bruce chuckled. Keshaara explored the room slowly, looking at the newness that surrounded her with a critical gaze. There were electrical devices aplenty, things she vaguely recognized as being similar in size or shape to items she had seen before.

“Why is it already full of things if no one has use for this place yet?”

“Tony likes to be prepared.”

Keshaara hummed under her breath, looking around the spare room with poorly disguised disinterest. Like the rest of the floor, it was pretty bland in coloration, with what appeared to be mostly mismatched furniture, now that she looked upon everything with a critical eye. For a while, she said nothing, and Bruce did not try and interrupt her casual perusal for a while.

“What did you wish to speak of, Bruce?”

“What was it that you were doing back there?”

Her mind spun a thousand different ways, trying to figure out where and _when_ “there” had been. She had done so much in her life, and while Bruce could not possibly know that, it did not stop her mind from spinning all the way back to Skyrim – all the way back to _Morrowind_ and her last moments there. For a long moment, she was lost in thought, trying to remember what she had been doing her entire life. Bruce had inadvertently asked a deeply probing question she had not asked herself in a long while.

“Back…where?”

“Downstairs.”

“Oh! Yes. I was escaping. With James.”

Bruce shook his head, smiling.

“Yes, I know that much, but I was wondering about how you calmed the big guy down like that.”

Keshaara blinked, confused for a moment. Helpfully, Bruce puffed himself up, and Keshaara nodded her understanding. He meant the green thing.

“It’s a dragon…shout. Hum, it’s hard to explain since you don’t know anything about where I came from. The words are power from the very beginning of time. I don’t really understand how the power still works here, since your world and mine are not anywhere connected, but it worked, and that’s all I know.”

“You said it was magic?”

“Yes.”

“Magic doesn’t exist. There are laws about what is and is not physically possible in the world and magic…can’t…”

Keshaara held out a hand and let her magic sparkle around her fingertips. Fire, first, curled around her hand, then turned into bright lightning, then to dancing fractals of frost. Her magic, as it always did, made her grin. 

“It ‘can’t’, but it _is._ Magic still exists, even here. Magic exists and works, and it doesn’t much care that you don’t think it’s possible.”

Bruce stared, entranced. Keshaara honestly never tired of watching people see magic for the first time. The look of awe in the other person’s eyes, the way they would reach out, and then retract their hands, still staring, still trying to understand .

“But _how_?”

Keshaara shrugged.

“The how is irrelevant.”

“It most certainly is relevant! You-”

“Bruce. It doesn’t matter. I cannot teach anyone here my magic, and only I can use my magic. The shout is even more beyond the ability of others. You have to have the soul of a dragon to do it. And to my knowledge, there are only three dragons from my home that still exist. Myself, and two others.”

Bruce looked at her, his mouth drawn down into a frown. He didn’t know how to respond to that. All of it seemed so very illogical, not to mention impossible. Dragons did not exist, magic did not exist, and Keshaara clearly looked very human but…that did not stop her from doing the impossible things anyway. She had calmed the big guy down with three words in a language he did not know, and held them all down, and then summoned ice and lightning and fire out of nothingness, but she still stood there, nonplussed, talking about it all as if it were a banality. She shrugged off his concern and interest, having already accepted her magic as just a part of her life. But Bruce was still mystified.

“Would you…talk about your magic more? I am really _very_ interested in how your magic works.”

“I do not mind talking about my magic. But, um, I would like to try to settle in and get to know what is here. This is a new place to me, and I would really like to know where I am. I’ve been on the run, or homeless the entire time I’ve been in Midg-…on Earth. I’m very hungry and I would like to have a shower or bath.”

“Of course, Keshaara. The shower should be over there. JARVIS will tell you how to find the kitchens when you’re done. Do you have any clothes to change into?”

“I am wearing the only clothes I have. I…was going to buy more, but getting here took most of my money.”

Bruce made a small sound under his breath.

“We’ll get you some new clothes. Do you know what size you…well no, you probably don’t. We’ll figure something out.”

“I don’t have much money, but I will pay back whatever it costs-”

“Don’t be silly. Tony has more than enough money to cover it.”

“I-I…don’t. I don’t think that I’m… _thank_ you but, I would prefer to talk to Tony about that. I don’t like people I don’t know buying things for me.”

_Except that vampire, who bought you dinner and then pinned you down._

Keshaara shook her head. She would think about that later. Not right now. Definitely not right now, not when Bruce was looking at her like he was. Keshaara averted her gaze from him. Bruce did not say anything for a moment, studying her carefully and weighing his next words against what he already knew about her.

“Consider your talk on magic payment, then. You could use some new clothes, and a warm meal, I’m sure. Tony and you and the others can figure out what the method of payment will be moving forward, but Thor has vouched for you, and you’ve made your position on leaving without James quite clear.”

Keshaara laughed, and rolled a shoulder in a shrug. He had a point, she had been very blunt in what she wanted and what she expected of this whole thing. As long as Thor stayed out of her way, Keshaara had no reason to be upset or lash out at anyone. She would be quite content to sit quietly in her room on the abandoned floor of the Avenger’s Tower if it meant James was safe and kept as such until he felt confident on his own.

“I am very protective of those I choose to trust. James is the first person on earth to earn that particular respect, is all. He is a good person and deserves better than whatever darkness lingers in his past.”

Bruce considered her words. She watched him weigh what she said against what he knew about her.

“I see. Let JARVIS know when you’re done showering and he’ll show you to our kitchen area.”

“Yes, of course.”

He made his exit, leaving her alone in a room with no lock on an abandoned floor of the Avengers tower in the middle of New York on Earth. Alone, with only her thoughts and a shower. And a question about who the fuck “JARVIS” was. But first, a shower. Where would they put a shower? Keshaara had been introduced to showers before and found them ceaselessly fascinating. Even when they were too short for her, and didn’t have enough pressure to really make the water impact her with any sort of real force, Keshaara still liked them. It was a pleasant change of pace from the baths she was used to.

Keshaara loved the idea – _any_ idea – that distanced her from her past. New experiences, new places, new things to drown out the feelings she still bore for the old. The fact that she had so willingly thrown herself at the vampire for looking even the slightest bit like someone from her past only complicated things in her mind. She wanted to move on, she wanted to _be_ part of this new world, but she could close her eyes and see Loki again, which made it all the harder on herself.

She oriented herself in the room, investigating the doors available to her until she found the bathroom. It was nearly as large as the main bedroom, which Keshaara found immensely agreeable. Big bathing rooms were vital. She stripped out of her clothing quickly, leaving them in a hasty pile on the ground. Figuring out where the laundry was done would come later. For now, she just wanted to get clean. Blood still spotted her skin from the vampire’s bite, even if she had already healed her wounds, and she did want it off of her.

* * *

The vampire-who-was-not, poor soul, was still dealing with the afteraffects of drinking blood from such a willing victim. Keshaara was a burning bright spear in his mind’s eye, shining brighter than any star could ever hope to, calling him back to her to slake a neverending hunger. He had shaken the shapeshifting spell away from himself as soon as he had felt able, but that did not stop him from sensing her, feeling her, craving her. He never would stop, he knew that. He had to finish what he had started, and soon, or this separation, however self-inflicted it may be, would kill him.

He _felt_ her. Her emotions, her feelings, and when she stepped into the shower, if he closed his eyes it was almost as if he was in there with her. He could feel the water, taste it in his mouth, smell her soap, nearly taste her skin between his teeth.

Desire blossomed in his blood, uncurling deep in his gut, setting fire to his naturally cold skin, leaving him breathless with **need** all at once.

Blessedly, he was alone, holed up in a dimension far removed from where she was, safe, for the time being, from those who hunted him, resting between moments to try and catch his breath. It was not the time, or the place for him to try and indulge in baser fantasies especially since he had _just_ done that with the object of his fantasies and that had been dangerous enough, but every panted breath he took bore her scent and his palms itched with the feel of her flesh. Is this what she felt when she had bitten him? Is this what it had been like for her when he and her husband had been servicing her?

Norns, how had she _withstood_ this?!

How had she lain there and let them fuck her feeling like this?

The few articles of clothing he had chosen to wear in his small dimension were stifling now. His trousers were too tight, far too tight, and he needed to calm himself down and stop thinking about her, because it was starting to pass from mere momentary fascination to full blown masturbatory fantasy.

(Was it really a fantasy if he was experiencing her through their current connection? Could it – did it still count as such when he could lick his lips and feel her there? Did it count when he could smell her own arousal rising in her blood, even from so far away?)

* * *

Keshaara found the shower to be wonderful. It was tall enough for her to stand without having to stoop to get her entire body beneath the water, and there were two whole showerheads for her to use at the same time, which created a nearly perfect waterfall for her to stand under _and_ it was one of the only things actually finished in the room, which was a eye-pleasing change of pace.

Instead of white tile, or even colored tile, the shower was accented with rough-cut pieces of dark stone, and the entire thing was curved to feel more natural. There was a seat that she could angle the showerheads towards if she wanted to sit while she washed herself.

Thankfully, there was soap in the shower already, wrapped up and unused and tied with twine. Keshaara smiled and unwrapped the soap. The smell of the soap was herbal and hard for her to place. But she liked it. It reminded her of the juniper berries and the tea James had gotten for her, but she could not name the smell itself. She would find out later, maybe ask the “Tony” that Bruce mentioned a few times what it was so she could find it for herself. The water was warm, and with the soap in-hand, she went to work cleaning herself.

Even with her healing magic having erased all the bites and bruises, washing the blood away sent twinges of phantom pain through her. Pleasure followed soon after and Keshaara tried to bite down on the feeling. It would not be very appropriate to inaugurate her new living situation with something like what she was considering, but at the same time…

She ran her hands across her throat, where she had born the bruises of dozens of bites, then down her shoulders, across her breasts – all places that had born ~~her~~ _the_ vampire’s teeth. Her hands dipped lower, skimming the planes of her stomach, slipping lower to caress her thighs. She tries to resist the urge to move her hands to cup her cunt, but there was _something_ in the air, some presence, some specter of a memory that drove her to seek her own pleasure again.

It did not matter that she was still aching from her previous tryst, nor that she was still in an unfamiliar place. Need burned her and she could find no truly good reason to stop herself.

The pads of her fingers slipped inside her, a brief tease, a questioning advance to test if she was actually horny or if she was just looking for a way to relieve some stress. Orgasms were good to handle both problems, but she wanted to be sure which was she was leaning. The latter just required some quick and dirty fingering, maybe a little bit of magic, but the former? Oh, she hoped the hot water would not run cold on her.

Keshaara crooked her fingers, seeking the indication of her pleasure from her body, and had to catch herself on one of the stone protuberances to keep from collapsing. Desire so keen she could taste it on the back of her tongue, scorched her, and with a soundless cry, she succumbed to the feelings that coursed through her.

* * *

He doubled over, palming his cock through the rough fabric of his jeans. His hips snapped forward, seeking the pressure of his hand, the friction of movement, something, _anything_. He could still feel her, her fingers dancing across her own body, pressing into her own skin. She sought her own pleasure with his name on her lips.

He heard her, as clear as if she was in the same place as him, gasping and pleading with a specter she could only dream of existing. He knew she was bracing herself with a forearm against the shower’s wall, arching her back, writhing her hips, fingering herself with the desperation and _ease_ of someone so used to doing this to herself. He could feel the tension in her body as she tried to find relief.

His pants were a hindrance. He banished them from his body, sending them flying away from him and groaned as he finally wrapped his hand around his achingly hard cock. The mewling sounds he made were blessedly contained in the uncaring smallness of the space he had summoned for himself.

One hand was dedicated solely to jerking himself off messily, sloppily, without any of the finesse he usually possessed. The other clutched the pendant he had been wearing in the club, pressing the black-purple gem into his palm, another reminder of _her_.

He did not have fangs anymore, he had banished them from his body but he still could feel her heart’s frantic beating. Every one of her heartbeats pressed against his skin. Her fingers pressed into her cunt, her dripping wet cunt that he had taken the utmost pleasure in plumbing the depths of. It was supremely unsatisfying to fuck his fist after being inside of her not too long ago. He had felt her, every exquisite inch of her, tasted her intimately and now they were separated by time and space and it was horrifying.

He leaned back against whatever support he could find, thrusting up into his fist, twisting his hand on the upstroke, trying to wring his own orgasm out of himself as fast as possible to end the torturous assault. He bit his lip, tightening his grip on the pendant he wore, trying to smother the traitorous noises threatening to spill out of his mouth. He was alone in here, he knew that, just as she was alone in the shower back on Midgard, but that did not – _could not_ stop the pleasured sounds that tumbled from his lips.

“A- _ahn_ ,” he moaned, not needing anything to supply his fantasies. He could see her, feel her, breathe her in, do everything except actually _touch_ her. It was absolutely maddening.

He needed to have her again. Immediately. He needed her _now_. He never wanted to be parted from her, he never wanted to be away from her and the fact that he had forged such an intimate connection with her on so many different occasions only made him need her more. His hand was a poor replacement for someone as beautiful and intoxicating as she was, but he made do, thrusting and twisting and working himself into a near-frenzy. He was hopelessly entranced by her, enthralled by her every moment, breathless with expectation of when he would manage to see her again.

Because he was going to ignore every last thing that told him to leave her, to never find her again, to ignore her presence, her pulsing brightness in his mind in order to see her again. He needed to see her again.

In the background of his mind, he felt her pleasure explode like supernovas in her blood and _his_. He gasped, choking on his own breath as he felt the rush of his own orgasm roar through him. He covered his mouth with the hand that still clutched at the last piece of her he had in his possession and called her name to the stars.

* * *

Keshaara came with an intensity that startled her, Loki’s name tumbling from her lips. Her knees lost their strength and she crumpled to the ground, panting. The water washed over her, soothing the hurt that his name still caused her, lulling her into relaxation instead of sorrow. For a surety, though, her sadness was still there, lurking ominously on the horizon. She would feel it on another day, though.

For now, she had to go meet with the Avengers. She had to be Keshaara, Dovahkiin, Hero and Protector.

She could hold off on being Keshaara, Kingless Queen for another few days. Mourning was not something that suited her well, as she very well knew. But it was a part of her life now, regardless. She would see to it later. Right now, she just wanted to rub the strong-smelling soap all over her skin until she was certain that she would not be able to smell the vampire or Loki’s ghost on her flesh.

 


	15. Rest

The Tale of the Dragonborn

* * *

 

When she eventually got around to drying herself off, Keshaara was in a much improved mood. Bathing after so long had a lovely affect on her, and she felt like she was in such a better state of mind that she did not really find herself getting angry when she entered her room to see her clothes were gone. New ones were in their place, still warm from the dryer she found when she reached for them. She was surprised to see underwear there as well, and just by a quick look over she guessed it would be a pretty close fit to what she wore.

“I hope the clothing is to your liking, ma’am.”

Keshaara jumped, turning sharply to identify where the speaker was. None of her senses could find a living being in the room, and the voice had seem to come from multiple places simultaneously. She narrowed her eyes, tense now that something unusual had happened.

“I am sorry. I have startled you. My name is JARVIS. I was created by Mr. Stark.”

She blinked, turning her head to try and find where the voice was coming from.

“I do not understand, Jarvis. Who are you?”

“I am a multifunctional software program capable of managing the local environment of the interior of this tower, not a human being. Mr. Stark made me to manage the security, environment and well-being of his home, and has since moved me here as this is now where he spends much of his time.”

Keshaara took a moment, trying to process what was being said. She wanted to understand, but this was boggling her mind. That was not helpful. She had to try and find a place to start so that…Jarvis could understand.

“That, surprisingly enough, is informative, but still unhelpful. I come from a place where we do not have…multifunctional software programs. Would it be helpful to liken my people to the Vikings? From what I learned at the museums I visited, they seemed to be similar to what I grew up around. The most advanced mechanisms I ever worked with were automata made by a long-dead culture called the Dwemer.”

The voice was silent for a moment.

“I see.”

Keshaara frowned, and looked down at her state of undress. She was not embarrassed by nudity, not in the slightest, actually, but she had been assured some manner of privacy and was not pleased by the implication that she was not actually being offered any.

“Sir Banner said that Tony had no cameras in here. Can you see me?”

“I have body-heat sensors that enable me to tell where in the room you are situated, to better direct my voice to you.”

“That does not quite answer the question.”

“As I do not have eyes, it is a hard question to answer.”

“I don’t understand. You can see me, but you can’t.”

“That is correct.”

Keshaara sighed and dressed herself quickly. This was going to be a long conversation, she could tell. There was much of Earth that confused her still, and while she tried to understand what things meant, she had no frame of reference for how these things should work. She would start at the beginning, then.

“You are a housecarl, then?”

“Of sorts.”

She huffed and sat on her bed. There was nowhere for her to look to try and maintain eye contact with this Jarvis, and she had the urge to be polite.

“Alright. You have no physical presence?”

“There are servers – machines that hold many electrical components – that act as my ‘body’, but I do not have an organic vessel, no.”

“That is still confusing for me, but I will accept it.”

“Oh, good.”

The voice sounded dully unamused, which made Keshaara chuckle.

“Are you…sentient?”

“I believe so, yes.”

“Do…hum. I don’t know what to ask you. I’m not certain I understand what you are, still. Programs are the things that make the more advanced computers work, right? There are computers in some of the cars that drive around. I saw them when I hitched a ride with a few of the hunters on my trail.”

“Yes, there are programs in those computers. I am not a conglomerate of programs, like those ones though. I am but one, I simply serve many purposes.”

“I would say that I understand, but I do not. Programs are…what, exactly?”

“A computer program, or ‘program’, is a series of instructions written to perform a specified task.”

“But you do many things, not just the one.”

“My task, as it is written, is to assist Anthony Stark.”

“Then why are you here, checking on me, and talking with me?”

“Because this assists Anthony Stark.”

“How?”

“I am not at liberty to discuss that.”

Keshaara hummed beneath her breath. That was allowable, since she did not think that it needed an immediate response. Jarvis was complicated. Or was it JARVIS?

“Jarvis, is there a better way to call you? When Bruce talked about you, your name sounded more like JARVIS, and I do not know which you prefer. Is there a name or phrasing of it that you prefer?”

The voice was silent for a long while, and Aurum looked around, searching for any indication that Jarvis had come or gone, but she could not find anything that showed her what and where he could be. She took that as a dismissal, and after she shrugged her borrowed sweater on, and slipped into the sweatpants, she ambled towards the door to her room.

“I like it when you call me Jarvis, miss. Not JARVIS. Just Jarvis.”

Keshaara turned her head towards where she thought the voice was coming from.

“Alright then, just Jarvis. I will call you that. You may call me Keshaara.”

Silence, again. Keshaara nodded and filed the information away in her mind. She would be certain to remember this for future interactions with Jarvis. She should go to the kitchen and see if she could talk to Tony about what things cost so she could figure out how she could afford this or pay these people back. Keshaara did not do ‘debts’ very well. She wanted to make sure her debts were paid and there was nothing these people could hold over her.

Carefully, she picked her way through the unfinished floor, looking for the stairs so she could go find the kitchen. Her stomach rumbled angrily. She should not be hungry, but between having her blood drained by a vampire and using so much magic, her hunger had returned and if these people were offering food, it would be the pinnacle of rudeness to not eat it. Even if she was uncertain how it would put her into debt, she had no money remaining and a mighty hunger no single pizza could slake.

“The kitchens are two floors up and on the left.”

Keshaara had already accepted that she would now be hearing Jarvis’ voice coming from the room wherever she was. It was a small comfort, actually. The housecarls and her had always gotten along, from Lydia, to Dόmhildr, and now it seemed, to Jarvis. Even if Jarvis was not _her_ housecarl, she still appreciated his presence.

“Thank you, Jarvis. It is appreciated. Is James safe?”

There was a pause.

“He is currently in his room.”

“Is that all you will say?”

“Yes. Mr. Stark does appreciate the needs of others for privacy. James Buchanan Barnes is currently in his room.”

“Is is opposed to visitors?”

Another pause.

“No.”

“Can you please give me directions to his room, then?”

“Yes. Follow the blue floor lighting and I will make sure you get there.”

Keshaara looked down and grinned at the floor, watching breathlessly as little blue glowing bands appeared on the floor, guiding her through the building. Without paying much attention to where she was going, Keshaara followed the path given to her. She had time a plenty to memorize the layout of the Tower later. Right now, she wanted to make certain that James was unharmed and well.

Barefoot, she padded along the path that Jarvis had outlined for her, humming a song she was only half-certain she was remembering correctly. She was hungry, yes, but James came first. James and her could go get food together and face whatever lurked in the tower together. They were sibs, that’s what sibs did. They looked out for each other, they made sure the other was safe, they made certain they felt comfortable. Aela had not left Keshaara’s side for the first month and a half after Keshaara had joined the Companions, constantly ensuring that Keshaara was well and good. After the chaos of being forced into vampirism, the tenderness and friendship that Aela had offered her had truly helped.

She would do the same for James.

The lights led her to a closed door in a hallway more decorated than the one her own room’s surroundings, and after taking a brief moment to orient herself, she knocked on the door.

“James? It’s Kesh. Do you want to go get some food with me? Jarvis is showing me to the kitchens next and I didn’t know if you were hungry.”

There was silence for a long while, and Keshaara stood outside the door patiently. She was not going to rush James, and there was nothing wrong with standing in a rather nice hallway while she waited on James to make a decision. After five minutes, she considered asking Jarvis if James was still inside the room, but shrugged off the thought. James could be doing any number of things ad not immediately able to come to the door.

So she stood, and waited. Time passed, but that did not bother her or cause her any sort of conflict. Things happened. Until she got an answer from James, she was not going to leave his door. If he was hungry and –

“Sorry, Kesh,” she heard from the other side of the door, and then it opened. James peeked out at her.

“There is no need to apologize, James. Would you like to get food?”

“Yes, please.”

Keshaara beamed at him, and held her hand out to him, an offer if he wanted it. James blinked owlishly at her, staring down at the offered hand. It was a comfort that was offered, but he declined it this time, shaking his head. Keshaara retracted her hand, still smiling. She would never try and pressure James into something he didn’t want to do.

If he did not want to hold her hand, she did not mind.

“Jarvis, can you please show us to the kitchens?” she asked to the hallway around her.

James looked at her queerly, but when the response came -

“This way, Miss Keshaara.”

\- he started, surprised at the voice, looking up, and around, searching for the voice.

“Thank you, Jarvis. I appreciate it immensely. James, this is Jarvis. I don’t know much about him, but he is a computer program made by Mr. Stark. He has been helping me understand a few things. And look! Kitchen route!”

The blue lights were back, and with a smile, Keshaara started following them. James was slower to start walking with her, but when Keshaara looked over her shoulder to make sure he was doing well, she saw the ghost of a smile playing on his face.

“I never said thank you for the pizza, Kesh.”

“You did. Just not out loud. I understood what you meant. Thank you for the tea. And the hat. I really like the hat.”

His smile was small, tight, restricted to just the corners of his mouth, but it was there.

“I’m glad you do. It’s a good hat.”

Keshaara hummed happily, and they walked the rest of the way to the kitchen in silence. Keshaara paid marginally more attention to her surroundings this time through, watching very carefully. She had to make certain that James got back to his room safely, and while she had no thoughts that he was not perfectly capable of finding his way back to his room on his own, she wanted to know that she could find her way from the common area to his room and back. It was important to her.

They walked together, in comfortable silence, all the way to the thankfully empty kitchen.

Keshaara took a moment to look around the kitchen space. She had seen kitchens here on Earth before, but they had always confused her. There were too many cabinets and none of the spices were sorted properly, and where was the cook-fire, and how the fuck was she supposed to find anything and why were there seventy different pots and how did none of those seventy actually work for what she wanted to do?

She sighed. Nothing looked familiar. There were buttons and dials and a lot of things covered in very shiny metal-things but Keshaara had had a hard enough time understanding the deli-case refrigerators at a convenience store, so the rest of this bullshit was damn near impossible for her to parse.

“I must confess, I have no idea how any of this works.”

James huffed, a small laugh bubbling up from somewhere deep in his chest. Keshaara rolled her eyes at him and resisted the urge to throw herself dramatically to the floor. It would be funny, and she felt like it could be appropriate, since no one here (save Thor, who did not count) knew what to expect from her. But she decided against it. No need to be too extravagant just yet.

“I think I can work some of this. What do you want to eat?” James asked, his voice muted and soft.

“Cook whatever you want to eat, James. I just…don’t know where to start. I’m used to cooking over open fires and hunting or gathering whatever I ate. I just don’t know what to do with this stuff. Can you show me?”

James huffed again, but nodded. He started slow, opening the refrigerator and rifling through the food that remained there. He gathered some ingredients and started working, quietly going about his business with Keshaara in the background, offering help when she could. She and he worked together, with Jarvis offering suggestions on what they could make with the ingredients they had access too.

“Jarvis, will we have to pay for anything here? I want to keep track of how much I owe-”

“Mr. Stark has assigned you a stipend to compensate you for being made to stay in the Tower for the foreseeable future.”

“I cannot leave the Tower?”

“No, you may leave whenever you wish. But while you are here, he has made it clear that you can purchase what you need for your comfort. I would recommend starting with a computer or laptop, so that you can research and find the things you want.”

Keshaara cocked her head off to one side.

“That would be prudent. I do not know anything about those manners of machine. Could you please find me a suitable computer and purchase it through my stipend? Does James have a similar stipend?”

“Yes, to both, Keshaara.”

“Good.”

James prepared food, Jarvis showed her where the plates were, and the two of them ate in companionable silence. Jarvis, she hoped, was still around, just because she was starting to grow a little fond of the disembodied voice. He was polite, and he was a housecarl. It was a familiarity, and she enjoyed anything that was familiar to Skyrim…to Morrowind. It made her feel safer. Made her feel like she could belong here.

“Keshaara, you may want to know that Ms. Romanova, Mr. Barton and Mr. Stark are coming to the kitchen now as well.”

She nodded.

“James, do you want to be here when they come by?”

He looked up from his food, his eyes going wide. He shook his head only once, and with a smile, Keshaara turned her head towards the hallway back to James’ room, inviting him to walk back with her. He stood, careful to put both of their plates near the sink, and then followed behind her, silent as a ghost. Keshaara did not look behind her, content in knowing that if James wanted to be near her, he would be.

She walked carefully to his door, and waited outside it for him to open it.

“If you need me, James, call me.”

He nodded.

“Do you want me to stay with you for a while?”

There was a long pause, where James looked at the door, and then to her. He shook his head, and Keshaara nodded.

“Very well. Let me know if you need me. I will be in my room, alright?”

He nodded again, and Keshaara smiled at him. He was handling this rather well, actually. Given everything that had been happening as of late, James seemed rather well balanced and at ease. She was proud of him, and only prayed that he would continue to improve, especially given the circumstances she had found him in just a few hours prior.

She turned to leave, almost ready to ask Jarvis to show her back to her room, when she felt James’ hand brush her elbow. Keshaara turned back to him, but said nothing. If he had stopped her movement, he had a reason to do so, and she wanted to give him the time he needed to find how he wanted to speak of what was in his mind.

“Please, come in. I have a kettle. We can have some tea.”

Keshaara bowed her head gracefully.

“That sounds wonderful, James. Thank you for the invitation. I think I would very much like to spend this time with you.”

He held the door for her, and Keshaara swept into his room, still smiling.


	16. Breakfast

The Tale of the Dragonborn

* * *

 

“Miss Keshaara, Captain Rogers and Miss Romanova are on their way to this room. You may wish to answer the door before they arrive to allay any fears Mr. Barnes has.”

Keshaara blinked, looking up. She knew Jarvis was not, technically ‘up’ from where she was, but it was a comfortable movement. She was sitting in front of James’ bedroom door, blocking it from being opened with her body, staying on watch while James slept. She had suggested this particular course of action when she saw that James was not comfortable with sleeping in a room like this.

It afforded him some semblance of comfort to have them sleep in shifts, so she had offered to take the first watch, sitting herself in front of the door and waiting for her time to be up. Keshaara had done much the same thing for people before, and understood how it could put someone at ease to have someone they knew watch over them.

“Thank you, Jarvis. When will they be here?”

“Within the minute, Miss Keshaara.”

She stood, stretching her back and looking to James, asleep on the bed. These people did not mean him harm, not intentionally, at least, and she did not want to doubt the fact that they intended well, but it was still worrisome that two would come. They would have been outnumbering him if she was not there. That was not a way to put him at ease.

Keshaara opened the door and slid out of it, looking up to a surprised pair of people.

“Keshaara, I did not expect to see you here.”

“James wanted me to take first watch for him.”

That clearly was not what either of them was expecting. Good. She liked it when people were kept on their toes around her. Granted, she had not made the best of impressions on these people, what with using her magic to pin three of them to the ground, and then threatening to murder Thor, who she presumed was a companion of theirs, and then also maybe nearly trying to kill the other two. It generally did not behoove her to groups of people to do that, but it had managed to work out pretty well in Skyrim.

Well, at least it had with the Dark Brotherhood.

But the Brotherhood was a group of assassins commanded by one of the Daedra, and what Keshaara remembered of hearing about the Avengers, they were not Daedra-bound.

She shook her head. Those thoughts were not super helpful right at the moment.

“What do you mean?”

“He feels unsafe here. I offered to take first watch, he will take second. I should get back inside in case he wakes up and finds me gone.”

“He…oh.”

“Yes. Is that all?”

The redheaded woman, Miss Romanova, according to Jarvis, looked at her queerly. Keshaara met her gaze placidly. There was nothing else to say, really. If they had a question, they certainly were not asking it. Keshaara blinked.

“I do not want to be rude, I really do not. After the rather rocky way we met, it would not be proper of me to be rude, but I want to make certain that James is comfortable. He is my friend, and the only one I’ve made here so far. I want to make him happy.”

She inclined her head briefly, and turned back to go into the room.

“Keshaara, may we speak in private, in the morning?”

“Of course, Miss Romanova.”

“Natasha.”

“Very well, Natasha.”

* * *

She let James sleep all the way through the night. She sat, listening and thinking, pondering what she could possibly need to talk about with Natasha. The woman was a determined one, very strong-willed, very much the sort she would have expected to be in the Brotherhood. But there was no Brotherhood in this place, she knew. Not as Keshaara had once known the Brotherhood at least.

Ah, it was all very well confusing.

And not for the first time, she found herself thinking back to how much easier it had all been on Asgard. She had had a definite purpose there, and knew where she stood in practically all things. Asgard could have very well been massive, but she only very rarely got to see more than just the glittering, empty heart of it. Even the few weeks she had spent, gallivanting off on her own had not really allowed her the time to understand how large it was.

But Earth? Earth was massive. There was so much to Earth, and Keshaara knew that that meant she would never truly be able to understand how much there was to it unless she was given free rein to wander. Now though, she had someone to take care of.

It was different with James. He was not like Loki, not in the slightest. He did not need a Champion to fend off those who would imprison him.

He needed a friend.

And Keshaara needed one as well.

When he rose, she stood from her position at the door, smiling.

“Must have lost track of time, James. Breakfast?”

He huffed a half-laugh at her and shook his head.

“Should have figured. Alright.”

Keshaara beamed at him, proud of her ability to make sure he could get a good night’s sleep when he was in an uncomfortable place. This was not a place where either of them had even been invited to be as an equal. James had been brought in as a captive, and she had come in uninvited to try and free him. That did not entirely behoove them to the legitimate residents of the Tower. James, at least, appeared to have been friends with one of them at one point in time. Keshaara was not certain on how that worked. She did not think it wise to ask, regardless, so she accepted the two-very-old-but-not-at-all-old soldiers thing at face value. It was what it was.

“You can make breakfast for me and show me how the stuff works.”

“Fair’s fair.”

She shook out her still-asleep foot and opened the door for James. Together, they walked back to the kitchens in amiable silence. It was as it always had been with them. They did not need to talk. No, they were both perfectly content to enjoy the other’s nearness. James would point to what he needed her to fetch, and she would grab it. He would step back to demonstrate how something was used, and she would nod her understanding, or indicate that she was still uncertain with how it worked, and he would demonstrate again.

The only time they needed to talk was when they wanted to, and that was rare. They were content, together.

“Keshaara, the others are on their way.”

“Thank you, Jarvis. Are they hungry? I think I can make breakfast for them if they need it. James, do you want to stay here when they are here?”

James considered the question for a while, then shrugged a single shoulder.

“If you are uncomfortable at any point, let me know, and I will help, brother cub.”

He blinked at her, apparently confused by the statement. It was Keshaara’s turn to shrug a shoulder and smile at him. They could talk about it later, and that was all that was really important. He was a sib to her, and that was truly, all she cared about. She leaned in and gently touched her forehead to his, and then moved away before he could be unnerved by her closeness.

They were sibs, it was important to her to make sure he knew that she would protect him.

“Good morning, Keshaara.”

“Good morning, Bruce. Did you sleep well?”

“I did, thank you for asking. Did you?”

“I opted not to sleep. I was ensuring James was comfortable. I can go for a long while without sleeping, regardless. It was nice. Very quiet in the Tower, I liked it. Gave me time to think. Gave James the chance to sleep.”

Bruce nodded, smiling broadly at her. Keshaara moved out of the kitchen, reaching backwards to take the plate that James offered to her, before moving to find somewhere to sit. James stuck next to her, as close as he could be without being improper or impugning her personal space. Keshaara was careful to keep herself between him and the others, a physical obstacle in the way of him and potential danger.

She was not trying to be obvious about her intentions, but she knew that there were at least two people who noticed – James, and Natasha, who watched her with the intensity of a hawk. Keshaara pointedly looked back at Natasha when she felt the woman’s eyes on her, daring Natasha to challenge what she was doing. Natasha did nothing, and Keshaara went back to eating.

“Keshaara, I was wondering something,” Bruce said, coming to stand near where she was sitting.

“Mmm?”

“Does using magic make you hungry? I mean, does it affect your metabolism in any way?”

Keshaara frowned, considering the question carefully as she ate the scrambled eggs that James had made for her.

“I am uncertain. For a long time, due to a certain…series of events, I had no limit to the magic I could use. I did not need to eat or sleep or do anything other than to do them to make myself feel normal. It was why I lived for so long, and potentially why so many things happened the way they did. Since that eventually went away, and I am now less immortal than I was, I would imagine it does have some effect, but I have not taxed my magic without being well-fed in a long while. Being homeless made finding money for food difficult, and this is the first time in a while I’ve been somewhere with reliable access to food.”

Bruce nodded along, listening carefully.

“When you are sure you are back to your normal levels of energy, would you mind testing that for me? I have a theory on how your magic might work.”

Keshaara laughed, throwing her head back and enjoying the thought of someone, _anyone_ truly understanding magic without being a mage. It was nice, though, to talk about it.

“My magic is a warping of Oblivion, and I can use it because I have a greater sense of Oblivion than others. I was Archmage, once. But I will be certain to let you know when I feel as if I am up to where I was once. There will be some things you just will not be able to measure. My magic is not of only one type, you see.”

“I don’t, but I do want to know more about it, I can assure you.”

“Of course, Bruce. I enjoy talking about my magic immensely. Teaching was one of the things I had enjoyed about being the Archmage. The paperwork involved in running the College was decidedly less enjoyable.”

“You ran a college?” a man she had not yet been introduced to interjected, stepping up between her and Bruce.

“ _The_ College, yes. For mages. I’m sorry, I have not ascribed a name to your face yet. I am Keshaara.”

“Tony Stark, nice to meet you without the suit on.”

She blinked.

“You were in the automata? How did you do that?”

“I make the suits. They’re part of me.”

“That’s very interesting.”

“Isn’t it just? Now, about that College.”

“Yes, I was the Archmage. I was in charge of the College of Winterhold, which is where we trained mages. I was Archmage because I was the most powerful mage. I eventually abdicated the position because…I was tired of being there. I was old, it was cold, and I missed my home. So I left. Only Archmage to ever do that.”

“So this College was…what?”

“For Skyrim – the country I was in, the College was where mages who wanted to advance their magic and study it went. No one needed to go, and it was not compulsory to attend if you wanted to call yourself a mage. I attended first as a student, and then after I proved myself, I took the lead as Archmage.”

“Huh.”

“Mmm.”

There was silence for a while as Keshaara went back to eating. James stood behind her still, tense, but not panicking. Every so often she would tilt her head back to him so she could listen to James, just in case he needed her to be there for him.

“So, what can you do?”

“With my magic, you mean, Tony?”

“Yep.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“I dunno. Set the countertop on fire.”

Keshaara arched an eyebrow.

“You are serious.”

“Can you not do it?”

Keshaara rolled her eyes and made a dismissive gesture with one hand. All available counter space that was not too close to someone standing idly buy burst into roaring orange flame. The flames guttered out at her next gesture, leaving no indication that there had ever been fire there.

“Woah.”

She smiled, but shrugged anyway.

“It’s magic. I can do just about anything I want to do with it, within reason.”

“Could you bring someone back from the dead?”

“I made a promise to a friend that I would never use necromancy. Theoretically, yes, as a thrall, I could bring anyone back. The person I…learned from once raised an army of the undead in her name and set about conquering the world. Realistically, no, I will not use necromancy. I would hate to upset ‘Nehviir.”

Tony stared at her.

“You’re serious.”

“I take my magic very seriously. So, yes.”

“So what can’t you do?”

Bruce asked the last question, and Keshaara turned to him. The others in the room were all pointedly trying to ignore the conversation, and Steve looked as if he wanted to get closer to James, who was still tucked safely behind Keshaara, picking at his breakfast hesitantly. She considered the question carefully, not responding immediately.

“I cannot stop the inevitable. Be that death, or destruction. I have no power to shape destiny, no ability to turn back what has been done. Magic solves only the problems that could be solved by other means. It cannot rewrite history, undo what was done, or do something that was not determined to be.”

The saying of it sent a sharp lance of regret through her. It was true, and she wished it was not.

(A dark part of her, the anger, the rage, the fury and frustration at everything that had been done to her whispered ~~that it was not true with the Tesseract. If she had it, she could do anything. She could do anything and bring him **BACK**~~ )

That did not matter. It did not because she could not abide by doing such a thing. If she did something so stupid as to try and bring Loki back, she knew it would never truly be Loki. The thought alone was an insult to who he had been, both to her, and to others. Loki was dead. That was all there was to it.

“Kesh, are you upset?”

James spoke from behind her, and Keshaara turned to him immediately. It did not matter to her that she presented the entirety of her back to the people she still was not entirely certain didn’t want to kill her. James had spoken, and he required her attention.

“I am…sad. Yes.”

Lying about her own emotional state would not set a good precedent. James had picked up on her turmoil, and denying its existence would not help her or him.

“Why?”

“I have lost many things in my life. My magic cannot fix what was broken. It cannot bring them back. The honored dead are just that, and as lonely as I may be, I must remain as such.”

“I am sorry for your loss, Kesh.”

She offered a wan smile as her response, and gently reached out to brush her hand across the back of his. She was sorry too, but there was nothing she could do.

“Thank you, James. Now, Bruce, Natasha, Tony – I believe all of you had more questions for me? Is there a better place to speak, or is this good enough for whatever purposes you all had in mind?”

* * *

They ended up seated on the luxurious couches in front of the massive television in the common room of the Tower. James declined to stay while Keshaara was questioned, but assured her that he would call for her if he was under duress. Keshaara still sent a tendril of magic to follow him, just in case. There was little chance of him being hurt here, she had been assured, but she had been assured of many things in her life and not all of them came to pass as she had been told they would.

She sat, opposite Tony, Bruce, and Natasha, her legs folded underneath her and her attention split between the three people.

“The magic you do – how did you learn it?” Bruce asked, looking down at a notebook he was balancing on his knees.

“I figured most of it out without any training. I was not given much choice. It was fight or die. I knew I had magic before that moment, but I had only used it to make small illusions to entertain myself and my family. I would find books as I travelled, or I stole them, and the ones germane to magic, I read. After a long time, I managed to gain access and training at the College of Winterhold.”

Natasha watched her carefully, and Keshaara did try not to grin.

“So, how old are you? Thor’s said all the Asgardians are way older than humans, but you look pretty young, even for an Asgardian.”

“I am _not_ from Asgard. I am from Morrowind, a country in Tamriel, in the universe we called Mundus. To my knowledge, I am from outside of your own multiverse system. But I am not of Asgard. I will never be of Asgard.”

Natasha’s stare intensified, but Tony looked the slightest bit taken aback.

“To answer your question, Tony. I am four hundred and eighty or so. Time flows differently here than it did back home. What was a month and a half in Asgard was four hundred and fifty years for me. To pre-empt the next question – no, my planet was not full of long-lived people like Asgard is. I was the oldest living being there until I was no longer there. It was a sad, and lonely life.”

She spoke with, perhaps, too much vehemence. It was, like many things were, a sore spot on her heart. Previous to this, she had thought herself a little more stoic and hard to upset, but it seemed this particular group of people was very skilled at pushing all the wrong parts of her to get a reaction. Keshaara crossed her arms and did her best to keep her frown from growing too deep.

The questions continued in a similar vein for a while. Natasha did not say much, merely observed Keshaara closely, undoubtedly looking for _something_ in her to manipulate. Keshaara would usually be on edge by that sort of thing, but at this stage in her life, there was not much else left to care for. If Natasha wanted to try and hurt her, she was welcome to try. Keshaara was, apparently, one huge bruise when it came to emotions, now that she had the time to sit and think about them.

“Why do you have such vehemence for Thor?”

It was the first question Natasha had asked, and Keshaara gave her attention immediately to the other woman.

“He left his brother unburied and uncovered and called that more than he had deserved. Were I of a sharper temper, Thor would already be dead for that transgression.”

“His brother, Loki.”

“The same,” Keshaara snapped.

“What does it matter? Loki killed thousands and left their bodies-”

“Thor is Loki’s brother. You do not _do that_ to family. You do not leave them exposed to the elements, out in a plane of existence no one can ever get to, for carrion birds and scavenging beasts. You do not do that to family,” Keshaara said, cutting Tony off. Her voice was firm, but her emotions were in turmoil.

“Thor suggested you and Loki had a relationship,” Natasha suggested, almost offhandedly. But Keshaara saw the way Natasha looked up at her and held her gaze as she responded.

“We were engaged to be married. Yes.”

That certainly got the attention of everyone in attendance. Bruce stared, Tony’s mouth was hanging open, and Natasha’s eyes had gone ice cold.

“I don’t see how that’s relevant to anything, may we please speak of something other than my betrothed’s death? It is not pleasant for me and I would like to not talk about it with strangers.”

“You were going to marry Loki.”

“That is, after all, what ‘betrothed’ means.”

“He attacked Earth, nearly killed all of us and-”

“Was under the compulsion of the Tesseract, a relic of ancient power that, in fact, possessed me as well when I was in Asgard, nearly killing me, and attempting to use me to kill Loki for his failure in conquering earth and giving it the power it craved. The Tesseract is at fault, and again, the fault of a family who had no love for a son they adopted. That is all I am going to speak of on the matter, thank you for taking the time to talk with me, but I think I am quite done with this conversation, good bye.”

With that, Keshaara stood and walked stiffly away, her fists tight at her side and her orange eyes burning with anger. Her heart thudded hard against her chest and she may not have _fled_ back to her room, but she walked with a purpose that was born of speed and a trembling upwelling of emotion that she did not want to have others see.

She did not need Jarvis to show her the way back to her room. No, she could find the way back on her own, following pure instinct and drive. She slammed the door behind her with entirely too much force, and got two steps further into her room before the sorrow that had been lurking beneath her skin for the months she had been on the run roared in her chest. Keshaara fell to her knees, clutching her chest and biting her lip to keep from wailing. Hot, fat tears rolled down her face. First just the one, then thousands more like it as she curled in on herself, seeking some remnant of Loki’s touch on her own body to make it stop _hurting_ so much.

_Divines, please, just let it stop hurting._


	17. Shopping

The Tale of the Dragonborn

* * *

Keshaara held herself, letting the tears fall, trying to get her breath under control first, before working on not crying in a pathetic ball on the floor of her room. Loki had been dead a long while, and here she was, still driven to tears over the merest mention of him and what they had had. This was her life.

Even now, with the barest change that she was actually safe, she was curling in on herself, trying to hold the deluge of sorrow within her and failing utterly to do so. She felt her sadness clawing down her ribs, trying to peel her apart from the inside, and bit her cheek until she tasted blood to stop the keening that bubbled up in the back of her throat.

She did not know what to do with her hands. At first, Keshaara clutched at the collar of her shirt, pulling herself down into a tight ball, but that was not enough. She pulled her hair, trying to distract herself from the emotional pain, but that just left her with an aching scalp and more pain. She was too worried to put her hands on her face, lest she accidentally gouge out her eyes – and centuries of living with one eye completely blind kept her from even trying that.

But there was something she _needed_ , and she just couldn’t find it. It was not within, it was not without. It was nowhere, because it was _lost_. On some abandoned planet far from her, it was lost. Not even Heimdall could find it, and Keshaara had no hope of finding what even he could not see.

Her door opened behind her, and Keshaara turned to snarl at whoever it was, but the sound died on her lips when she saw James.

He knelt next to her, and without the hesitation he usually showed about physical contact, hugged her around her shoulders, holding her tight to him. He did not say anything, but he sat and held her as the tears leaked out of her eyes, and she finally had something to do with her own hands. She clung to James’ shirt, burying her face in the crook of his neck, staining the collar of his shirt with her sadness. But it was better than being alone.

He held her, and let her weep until the tears stopped coming.

Keshaara did not apologize for her emotions. She would never apologize for them, but she _did_ mumble an apology for getting gross all over the collar of James’ shirt. He shrugged.

“Do you want me to keep watch, tonight?” he asked, even though night was still hours away.

“No. I…I don’t, thank you. I don’t sleep well some nights, and I could hurt you. I will be fine on my own.”

The barest chance that she could accidentally hurt him would keep her from ever suggesting she sleep near him, or anyone else. It had been a very long time since she had felt comfortable sleeping, and while recently that had been because she was homeless and sleeping on benches, or beneath them, or on top of the driest-looking stoop, it had kept the nightmares away from her. She was no longer offered that protection, now that she had a bed of her own, and what she could assume was moderately safe housing.

The nightmares would come back.

Her dreams were no longer of Daedra. No, they were only of the one who had been as Aedra to her. She feared for them, knowing that the time apart from her most secret of terrors would only have made them worse. That was how it always worked. If she had respite, it would only make the dreams that came after it all the worse.

“You don’t have to be alone.”

He spoke so softly she almost didn’t hear it. He hugged her tighter, pulling her close.

“I know, James. I don’t want to be. But I won’t let myself hurt you.”

“You won’t.”

Her laugh was dry, humorless.

“James, you don’t know what I can do. Not really.”

“But you wouldn’t hurt me.”

Keshaara sighed and butted her forehead against his cheek.

“Yes, I know.”

The ground was cold, hard beneath their knees, but that hardly mattered. What mattered was the friendship, the safety they offered the other, despite not understanding or knowing too much of each other’s pasts. It did not matter. There was a comfort in their tacit acceptance of the demons that plagued their nights, and Keshaara found herself drifting into a gentle relaxation. She was not sleepy, not yet, it wasn’t time to sleep. Too early in the day for that. But she was relaxed, and that was very important.

“If you want to talk about it…”

Keshaara sighed and curled herself around James. If nothing else, he was safe in the curl of her arms and that made so many other things better. He was safe, and that was something she could work on maintaining. It gave her purpose, and she was rather upset by the fact that she needed to be given purpose like this, it was better than nothing.

“It’s a long story, James.”

“It’s still early in the day.”

She huffed again.

“You’re rather insistent.”

He shrugged.

“You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to. But I think you do.”

“I…don’t like talking about it. Can I show you, instead?”

Before James could reply, a knock came at the door. Keshaara looked up, her brows furrowed.

“Who is it?”

“Natasha.”

Keshaara detangled herself from James, and walked to the door. When she opened the door, Natasha was standing there, arms crossed.

“Yes, Natasha.”

“I wanted to see if you wanted to go shop for clothes.”

Well. That was certainly not what Keshaara was expecting.

“Excuse me?”

“Tony suggested we have some ‘girl time’.”

Keshaara had had centuries to master the incredulous arch of her brow, and not even Natasha could face her incredulous stare without some manner of uncomfortable shifting. Granted, the other woman only rolled her shoulder and averted her eyes for a moment.

“What does ‘girl time’ entail? Other than clothes shopping which, yes, I would like to do.”

Natasha shrugged.

“Can James come as well? He needs new clothes too.”

James had moved to stand behind her, his arms crossed to mirror Natasha’s own stance, ready in case something went wrong, and still hopeful that nothing would.

“Of course.”

“Is Tony paying for all of this, then?”

She nodded.

“Excellent. James, the story will be told another time.”

* * *

The three of them made an odd group as Natasha lead them to the nearest clothing store. Keshaara had not thought to take note of which particular name adorned the outside of the building, but she had not thought it had mattered.

At least, not until the personal stylist that Natasha had summoned began grilling her about which stores she shopped at usually and which designers she preferred and what sort of cut she liked and Keshaara had no idea how to respond. James was receiving similar treatment, and apparently handling it better than her. His time was not so far removed from this one. Her hesitant “I like thrift stores” sent the stylist into a tizzy about vintage styles and classic designers and Keshaara just nodded along, too confused to offer any sort of input.

Skyrim fashion was mostly long robes, for all genders. Unless you were adventuring or working, it was robes. Asgard didn’t wear robes the way Skyrim did, but the aesthetic was still very similar. Stylized armor and leathers, draped and flowing majestically. She did not know what to do with Earth’s fashion. All the time she had spent on Earth and she had apparently not even scratched the surface of what she could wear.

“What do you think about this? The emerald green would really make your eyes-”

“No. No green. No green. No gold. I refuse,” Keshaara snapped, the mention of the color breaking her out of her reverie. “I _refuse_ to wear those colors. I prefer grey, orange…anything other than green and gold.”

The poor stylist gaped at her before recovering and nodding quickly. Keshaara flinched and reached for the stylist’s arm, stopping the poor woman’s movements.

“I am sorry, I spoke too harshly. I…my fiancé recently died. Those were his favorite colors. They – I – it still hurts. I’m sorry.”

To her credit, the stylist’s misting eyes cleared and she looked up at Keshaara, an apology already tumbling from her lips. Keshaara smiled to soften her sharp comment and patted the poor woman on the shoulder. She did not want the stylist to be upset, because that was not the purpose of this trip. This was to find clothes and learn things and spend time with Natasha, who was undoubtedly watching her very carefully, but blessedly was not asking questions while the stylist was around.

“Don’t worry, miss. It’s alright, I understand. I’m sorry for your loss. I’ll go get you the next outfit.”

Keshaara bobbed her head and watched the other leave. Natasha stared, and Keshaara turned to her.

“You cared that deeply for Loki?”

The question was asked softly, without judgment. Natasha looked up at her, her brows furrowed. Keshaara took a long moment to respond, considering the question carefully. Natasha had been careful with her words, and Keshaara noted that. It was…interesting, to say the least, how delicately Natasha stepped around certain subjects. Of course, girl time required talking and of course Keshaara knew that the talking was mostly to get more information on her. It was fine, she understood.

“I…don’t know. I don’t know how deeply I cared for him. I was never given the opportunity to understand it. But I did care for him.”

Natasha nodded slowly.

“I’m sorry.”

Keshaara chuckled and shook her head.

“You’re not, but the sentiment is appreciated, thank you.”

The stylist came back before Natasha could reply, and swept Keshaara into the dressing room with an armful and a half of clothes for Keshaara to try on and a promise that there was a secondary helper would be coming by with more clothes for her. Keshaara did her best to not show how nervous she was about trying on all these clothes, and instead let herself smile and prepare for a new experience. This would be interesting, and that was all that mattered.

She stood and tried on all the clothes that were brought to her. Thankfully many of them fit her without needing different sizes, and she found that she did actually enjoy the look of some of the outfits that were chosen for her. Even if the silhouette was much different than what she was used to, it was still nice to see that she could look good in these fashions as well. It had never been a concern that she _wouldn’t_ , but it was never not nice to see that you look good.

Keshaara ended up selecting a wide array of clothes, from pretty pastel sundresses, to a nice pair of leather pants and a matching jacket, and everything in between. All from that first store that apparently had quite the range in clothing. And this was only the beginning, Natasha said with a smile as she guided the stylist to have the bill sent to Mr. Tony Stark and the clothing sent to the Avenger’s Tower.

James’ pile of clothing was far more modest than her own, but that would change with the next store, which was far more geared towards men than the first. Keshaara still insisted upon trying on some of the clothing, not understanding the delineation between ‘mens’ clothing and ‘womens’ clothing, despite the exasperated stylist trying to explain that the cut wouldn’t look right on her. She just rolled her eyes and insisted.

They obliged, and while Keshaara did not take much from the second store, except for some belts, a couple of hats and a nice pair of purple jeans, James was given time to find clothes he liked, with minimal help from the stylists, as most of them were busy trying to wrangle Keshaara. He made his purchases without much fuss, and waited for Keshaara to finish her own fussing.

As they exited the store, James jostled her shoulder with his and shook his head.

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, James. I just don’t understand gendered clothing. If I want to wear that clothing and it fits me, it’s mine.”

“Of _course_.”

Keshaara sniffed, and rolled her shoulder, pretending as if she did not hear the sarcasm in James’ voice. He chuckled and she, after another long moment, laughed with him.

“Let’s keep going. We have a few more stores to visit. Then we can go back to the tower and have some tea and coffee. Natasha, you are invited to sit with us, if you would like.”

“Thank you, Keshaara.”

“Anytime. Are you okay with that, James?”

“Yes. Let’s go.”

 


	18. Shatter

The Tale of the Dragonborn

* * *

The walk back to the Avenger’s Tower was a long one, but the three of them made an easy time of it. Keshaara chatted amicably with Natasha, and James walked quietly on her opposite side. Every so often, Keshaara would turn her head to check on him, but he always met her glance with a small nod to let her know that he was still handling everything well. Keshaara grinned and bounced between talking with Natasha and checking on James. It was a good way to walk, she found.

She and Natasha talked mostly of nothing, and even though she knew Natasha was simply trying to get more information out of her. That was fine, really. It was nice just to talk, regardless. Keshaara was skilled enough in conversation to keep Natasha away from anything actually important. Keshaara was certain that Natasha recognized what was happening, but only smiled around her words and gave Natasha a roguish wink.

When she caught her foot on something and stumbled the first time, Keshaara thought nothing of it, she just broke into laughter and shook her head. It happened sometimes! Everyone lost their balance from time to time.

The conversation continued, and Keshaara put her momentary instability out of her mind. The trio returned to the Tower without any further inconveniences.

Keshaara could almost ignore the fact that she ran her hip into a countertop, or her shin into a table that she _knew_ was there. Almost, but not quite. Every time, she managed to laugh it off, and managed to keep most of her nervousness from showing. It seemed like she was losing her sense of self. Her body was not where she thought it was, and it showed, every time she overextended her arm to reach something that was easily within reach, or ran face-first into a door.

When the evenings came and James came to visit, she would beg for an extension on the story she owed him, begged prettily, but begged nonetheless. Her magic, when she thought of it, was a slippery thing, siding through her fingers like so much shadowsilk. Keshaara could not know what it was being caused by. She could not bear to think what was happening. Because by this point in her life, she knew to expect nothing but the worst.

The thought did not comfort her.

And no, time never really dulled the annoyance of rolling an ankle. She covered her limp with skill, and went about her daily life with the Avengers as best she could. She and James were in constant comfortable contact. Even if they were not spending the day together, they would always make an effort to check on each other at least once.

She grew into somewhat easy friendships with some of the other Avengers. She and Natasha would find themselves talking amicably over morning tea, chatting about nothing in particular, and Keshaara slowly started opening up to the red-head. In a way, Natasha reminded her of Aela. Just without the face-paint. And the whole werewolf thing.

So Keshaara talked about Aela with Natasha, talked about her close friend with her new friend, and found some peace in that. Whatever it was that was blooming between them was a pleasant thing. They were warriors wounded in more ways than showed on their flesh, and Keshaara delighted, absolutely _delighted_ in light sparring with Natasha and James. It made her blood sing in her chest to learn from them. New things, new experiences, new _Companions_ after so long made her feel alive again.

She drilled them as only the Dovahkiin could, demonstrating her brutal hand to hand combat style, shadow-boxing against the ghosts that hovered in her mind’s eye. Even after all the centuries, she still remembered what it was like when her magic was still growing, and she had to rely more on the heft of her axe and less on her magical might.

Keshaara politely pretended to not notice Captain Rogers glowering as she worked with James though. Natasha turned up the music (pop music, always pop music, even though Keshaara had no idea what made it ‘pop’ more than anything else, she admitted freely to liking it) and gave her attention to Keshaara as well. The repetition of the drills was soothing, even if it looked violent.

Even as she trained with the two of them, she retrained herself, starting with the basic fighting building blocks she had learned all those years ago, and remembering what it felt like to really have to trust that your punch could knock someone on their ass. On the few occasions where she truly lost herself in the rhythm of her drilling, Natasha and James stood to the side and watched her work. Keshaara was a sight to behold, truly.

Her athleticism had waned in her mourning, and her forced flight, but that only made her moves brilliant instead of superb. She still threw herself into the imagined fight, bobbing and weaving around her opponents. When she twisted herself up into the air, she never landed improperly, and her skill, even rusted over from underuse, shone brightly. In the days they spent together, Keshaara found herself remembering the strength in her muscles.

Not that she had ever truly doubted herself, or her strength.

But it was a different thing to _feel_ it again. To feel her muscles pull and shift over bone and beneath flesh, to delight in the burn of stretching and feeling the tension slowly bleed away. Bruce came by when they started stretching, and joined in. He would lead them through a series of soothing martial arts forms, and Keshaara took to them immediately, following behind Bruce as he slowly and methodically moved through the steps.

They were meditative and soothing, and Keshaara enjoyed the practice of it. She hummed old songs from Morrowind beneath her breath as she moved with Bruce, and he would only ever shake his head and laugh before carrying on. Keshaara could easily see how these slow, methodical movements could be just as deadly as anything else, especially because they were meant to instill the practitioners with the sort of quiet, well-maintained fury that all of the best brawlers found in their hearts. Bruce didn’t respond to her question as to why he had chosen this manner of relaxation, only shrugged and moved to the next part of the form.

When the laptop came, and Jarvis confused her with too much technical talk too fast, she resigned herself to trudging down to where Tony Stark was and sat herself down on the floor of his workshop, asking questions of him as he worked. He was, in fact, a great help, and soon enough, she would just be sitting in her small corner to sit near someone, talking to Tony as she explored the depths of the internet.

It was how she learned best, she found. Sometimes the internet itself could answer questions, but other times, the internet still assumed a knowledge base she did not have. So she would ask Tony, and he would chuckle, but amuse her by answering the questions. Certainly, at first, her questions were incessant, as she sought clarification on…everything. There were many things that had bothered her in Asgard, and that was only exacerbated in…Earth. The magic that had allowed her to operate back in Asgard was enough for her to figure out how things went, but now that she was away from that, she was constantly finding herself in a position where she was uncertain what was happening.

But as the weeks wore on, she asked fewer questions about generalities and more questions about specifics. She would look something up, and then idly ask Tony about it, and then ask him more precise and more precise questions, until he stopped what he was doing and gave her his full attention. Jarvis would bring up holograms of what she was asking about, and he and Tony both would walk her through the deconstructed version of whatever it was she was working on.

Eventually, she would just come in and have Jarvis pull up whatever it was she had a question on and she would work through it herself.

Keshaara was not a stupid woman. She learned and adapted like anyone else could, and a life of hardship had left her with a keen ability to absorb and react to situations. It was not long until she was idly conversing with Tony over their projects, easily talking back and forth with each other.

So she spent her time between the training rooms and Tony’s lab, occasionally taking over the kitchen to treat James and whoever else came by while she was cooking to a meal. James, Natasha, Bruce and Tony almost always accepted if they came by while she was cooking. Clint Barton would only give her a small sneer and snatch a plate away before retreating out of the room, and the Captain would outright refuse to eat with her. Keshaara understood Barton’s reluctance.

She had been in Loki’s mind. She knew what pain he had wrought upon Barton.

She did not care why Captain America did not want to be in her presence.

Keshaara was gentle with Barton, not infringing upon his space or time, just making certain that whenever she did cook, there was enough for Barton. But she did not push him. It was not her place.

The situation was…nice. Not necessarily optimal, but it was nice. If she ignored what she felt in her chest, ignored the rising hum in the back of her mind and worked. She put her nose down and worked, to the exclusion of all else, and did her best to make sure that the others did not see her desperation and need to make sure she was busy until she collapsed from exhaustion and then busy again as soon as she woke up. It was easy to hide this behind needing to learn about Earth, and Keshaara, despite her need to understand pop culture ( _again_ with the _pop_! What made it **pop**!?) she never sat still and watched a movie or a show with her new friends.

No, she kept her hands busy and her mind engaged, cooking or working on something, or trying to read something while still paying attention to whatever else was happening. She waved concern away, knowing that she was not being completely sneaky in this respect, but she had nothing else to do. If she stopped thinking for too long, if she stopped occupying herself with something more, something more, something more, something _more_ , she heard the humming, the vibration in her bones, the rising tide of panic all come for her at once.

James, of course, could tell that something was wrong, and patiently, patiently, waited with her throughout it all. He supported her when she flagged, and more than once, helped her back to her room after she fell asleep in Tony’s lab. He kept his concerns quietly to himself, but gave Keshaara a _look_ that told her that he knew she was in trouble and he was watching her. Her only response was a sheepish smile before she drifted back down into a deep, deep sleep.

It was a poor way to go about living, but it was what she had.

* * *

Keshaara jerked herself out of her blessedly dreamless sleep. Her heart was already pounding in her chest, and adrenaline had already flooded her blood. She rolled out of her bed, lightning cracking the air around her hands as she tried to understand what was causing this. She had only ever felt this instinctive need to _protectfightwin_ when there was a dragon about, and there was none –

“ _No!_ ”

Too many things made sense all at once, and without thinking about it, she bolted from her bed.

Forgoing her pack and all measures of safety, Keshaara ran for the stairs and began to climb. At first, she took the steps two at a time, then three, and with a long stretch of her legs, she managed four.

“<Jarvis! Evacuate the Tower!>”

“Miss Keshaara? I am not familiar with that language.”

She shook her head. She had forgotten. This wasn’t Skyrim. This wasn’t home. This was Earth.

“Evacuate the Tower! Get everyone out of here, _now_!”

Jarvis did not respond and Keshaara took that as agreement to what she had asked.

_How could this happen? Worlds away, separated by literal Oblivion, how could it be happening here? How did this – how could he be **here**_?!

She burst onto the roof of the Avenger’s Tower, her eyes darting over the sky as she tried to figure out just what in the _hells_ was happening. Because whather senses were telling her was more than impossible – it spelled doom for all the worlds if it truly was _Him_.

The skies above, only just barely lit with the light of dawn, split open, and the great and terrible black body of the First of Creation broke through into Earth.

Keshaara ached for the feel of steel in her hands. She was defenseless, in pink puppy patterned pajamas, with nothing but the quailing magic in her chest as a guard against what was to come. The great black dragon, the first born of all things in Mundus, came. Keshaara cursed beneath her breath, trying to understand just what this was.

The Great Dragon circled the Tower once, and Keshaara knew that this wasn’t a dream. Her dreams would never summon _Him_. Not after everything else she had been through, her dreams would not do this to her. Not this, never this. This was real, chillingly real, and as he landed, curling his tail smugly beneath his chin, Keshaara remembered what it was to know fear.

“<Hello, Dovahkiin.>”

The years had not softened his voice. Keshaara rolled her shoulders back and stared him down.

“<Hail, Akatosh.>”

She kept her voice carefully neutral, and tried to keep from being surprised at how rough the native tongue of Skyrim felt on her tongue now. She had been away for many years, and the changes that had happened…but she had not thought it would be like this.

“<You have made a new home, Dovahkiin.>”

“<That is not true. I have made new companions. But that is not home.>”

The dragon laughed, and uncurled his tail. There was a brief flash of light, and all at once Keshaara beheld Akatosh-as-Man. She did not avert her eyes. The time to be cowed by one aspect of the Divine was long gone. She still swore oaths by the Divines, but less so now that Loki was gone. The Divines took him from her, and it hurt to think to invoke them for anything good.

“<I know. Home died, didn’t they?>”

Keshaara flinched, looking away for the barest moment. Akatosh laughed, and pulled something from his back. Before she could regard whatever it was that he held, she heard a commotion from behind her. James, Natasha, Tony and Bruce burst through the door, with Clint Barton and Captain Rogers not far behind. Thor flew up to meet them all, already in his battle regalia. It seemed everyone except for her had managed to garb themselves in something to do battle in, or with.

It would not matter. This was Akatosh. They stood no chance.

Her gaze drifted back to Akatosh, who was still grinning with a mouth too-full of sharpened teeth. In his hands, there was an ill omen. No, more than just an ill omen. It was a sign of the end, a symbol of what he was here for.

“<You desecrated his grave!>”

The words came out of her before she could stop them. She knew better than to show weakness in front of a dragon, but –

“Zun Haal Viik!”

The shout came as easily as it ever had, and she _pulled_ the knife away from Akatosh. The blade was as familiar as it had ever been, molded glass and set with gems. The enchantments lain upon it centuries before still hummed against the skin of her palm, and it was like she was twenty-four again, holding her son in her arms for the first time. Panic strangled her, and fury was not long behind.

“<How _could_ you?! >”

Akatosh grinned all the wider as her voice cracked. Pain wracked her entire body, centered on her heart. She **screamed** at him, forgetting all words of power and might, and just screamed. The world trembled around her, and her voice shook the heavens as it had done years before. Akatosh’s smile never faded, not even as Keshaara charged him. She was fire and rage inside and there was no time for her to think of any sort of tactic. Her vision was misted over with red, and not even the screaming of those behind her could make her back down.

Akatosh threw her to the side, and she rolled with the movement. Keshaara shot back up to her feet, not baring a downward glance for the seeping red gash on her chest from Akatosh’s clawed hands. Her lips curled into a sneer, and she forced an attack on him, regardless. She was not going to let him do this. Farhan’s knife was in her hand, and she knew how to stick people with the pointy end, even if she _was_ out of practice.

What she did not expect to hear was gunfire from where the others were standing. Keshaara whipped her head around, only to see James stalking forward, his eyes narrowed into slits. Natasha slunk around his left, her gun out and at the ready. Keshaara’s heart sank. That was touching, but they were going to get hurt. Akatosh opened his great maw, and Keshaara lunged at him again, slashing with her son’s knife.

He turned, and she caught the brunt of his shout.

“Fus Ro Dah!”

Oh, the years had not softened the blow of that thu’um. Keshaara was thrown backwards, with damn near enough force to send her over the edge of the roof, but she managed to just barely catch herself before being thrown over. Gritting her teeth against the pain that wracked her, she found her feet and rushed again. This time, her own thu’um that roared through the air, fire blistering the air. Her words had been lost in the maelstrom of fire, but the intent was clear.

She would fight this. She would fight him.

Her ward-spell flared to protect her friends (and Thor) from the fire, though she was quick to stop the spell when she felt her magical reserves flagging almost immediately. Had she lost that much of her skill? It seemed like it had only been a few days ago at the most that she had first felt the waning of her magic, but she knew almost immediately that that was merely because it had only been months, instead of centuries, as she had lived before.

Keshaara had grown too used to her magic that now it was staggering to her that she had almost nothing to use anymore.

If her magic failed, then she would just rely on strength and her voice. It did not matter if she could already feel her throat growing raw from overuse, it did not matter if she was bleeding from a dozen wounds – Akatosh was a dragon, just like any other she had faced in all her years. Dragons bled and died, just like anything else. She would destroy him. She had done so before, and she would do it again. She was not. Going. To. Die.

Akatosh shook off his Nordic form and his tail caught her in the chest, throwing her down to the ground. Before Keshaara could rise up again, he pinned her in place with a massive foreclaw, his talons ripping threw her flesh, carving a gasp from her mouth with a cruel twist of his claws.

“<I am going to win, Dovahkiin. This is how the Cycle ends. All must be consumed. You will fall. I will break every cairnstone of your loved ones and bring you their burial gifts. I will shower you with the pieces of your past and when your grief consumes you, so shall I. I will hunt down the other two you brought here. I will hunt everything and consume everything. You must die. The Cycle must begin again. And I. Will. Start. It. This anomaly will be consumed and you will learn your place, as you had done in Cycles past.>”

She cradled her hands against her deepest wound, panting harshly. Keshaara couldn’t remember the words that burned the back of her throat, because it had been centuries since she had heard them. But there were certain things that had been seared into her soul, and her sojourn through Sovengarde had certainly been one of them. She planted her feet and reached within for the memory, and the words, and the command ripped through her.

“ _Nahl Dal Vus, Akatosh!!”_

It was not a time wound, it was not as it had been once, it was not the spell to bind him away for centuries. No. It was to buy time, to give her a chance. Too much was wrong for her to fight him as she was.

Keshaara sagged, her healing magic quailed, and then failed. She crumpled to her knees, still clutching at wounds. Her vision was red, blurred over from where blood had flowed into them. The storm in her chest that she had been holding tight to in order to fight bled out of her and the was nothing left but agony.

“Kesh!”

James rushed to her side, and she ignored his offered comfort. She found her feet and staggered to her son’s weapon. The blood and pain from her wounds did not matter. No, all that mattered was the suffocating terror in her chest. She reached for the dagger, ignoring the agony that shot through her as she moved. That was her _son’s_ dagger, and it belonged in his _grave_. Akatosh had never been her favored of the Divines, but she could have never imagined him to be so cruel.

“We need to get her to the doctor!”

Someone tried to offer her support, and Keshaara shoved them away with a snarl. Thor (it had to be Thor, no one else would be strong enough) hefted her, regardless, holding her tight when she struggled. It was too hard

“Championess Keshaara, please, we must move you to the healers.”

She struggled vainly, clutching her son’s dagger to her chest and kicking her leg out. She neatly managed to struggle out of his arms, despite his best efforts to hold her still. She had to get away, and that did not mean she had time for this sort of pandering. She had to get her things and then get away. The blood and pain was meaningless in the face of knowing that there was more to come. Always more.

“What _was_ that, Keshaara?” Tony asked as she staggered past him, and she knew it to be a rhetorical question, but that didn’t stop her half-sobbed answer.

“He desecrated my son’s _grave_. He took my son’s _dagger_. He’s not going to stop until he comes back and kills me, but he – he broke my son’s _grave_!”

“Farhan’s?” Thor asked gently, and Keshaara turned away, reaching for the door handle.

Thor’s voice made her pause. He knew…he had been there when Hel had tempted her. She turned just slightly, so she could look at Thor, and everyone standing with him.

“Yes. Farhan’s. My son. This dagger belongs with my son’s bones, and instead, it’s here with me.”

“Championess Keshaara…I-”

“Don’t say anything Thor. Just. Don’t. Please…I need to go shower and think about what I’ll do next.”

“Kesh, please, we have to get you to the medical wing, you’re bleeding-”

“James. I’m fine.”

“You’re bleeding, and it’s a through-and-through. You _need_ to sit down and let the doctors see you.”

“I’ve had worse, right Thor?”

Thor swallowed the knot in his throat and did not meet her gaze. Keshaara turned back to James.

“Would it put you at ease, if I allowed the doctors to investigate my wounds, James? I already know what is wrong with my body, but it is nothing a meal and a rest can’t fix.”

“Your ribs are broken.”

“Yes. They are.”

“A nap doesn’t set broken ribs.”

“I’m not human, so yes, it actually does. I will recover, after some food and rest.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I’ve never lied to you before.”

“Keshaara, you’re pale and bleeding everywhere, don’t expect me to believe that you’ll be fine after just sleeping it off.”

Keshaara sighed and shook her head.

“James, please. I promise you, there is nothing wrong that will not fix itself after a rest. Look, the wound doesn’t go all the way through anymore, and I am moderately certain my nose is no longer bleeding.”

Demonstrating, she reached to the closest wound and pressed in until she met resistance. James stared, but she watched others flinch away.

“That doesn’t mean much.”

“Then press your fingers in the wound and feel it yourself. It is healing, but standing out here in blood-stained pajamas doesn’t really help. I want to take a shower. I’m going to go take one. Afterwards we can talk about what this was. But I want to take a shower.”

“I’m coming with you, then.”

Keshaara rolled her eyes.

“I’m not going to die in the shower, James.”

“I know you won’t. Because I’m coming with you.”

She scrubbed a hand across her face, smearing blood everywhere. An indiscernible string of syllables emanated from her mouth and Keshaara took a deep, steadying breath. She did not need this right now. She did not want anyone around her, she did not want to feel the press of humanity on her, she wanted the wildness and blood and revenge that her heart sang for. She was afraid and panicked, and she wanted to do _something,_ she wanted to do _anything_ that would make these feelings stop.

She tightened her grip on the hilt of her son’s dagger. Briefly, she envisioned using her son’s weapon to make an attempt on all of their lives, slitting James’ throat and then lunging for Thor. She could easily shout them stunned and kill them all before they could even think to try and block.

But she swallowed the compulsion down. It was her anger that spoke that to her to do those things. They were blameless in what had happened. They had tried to help, as much as they could against a dragon that was a God.

Keshaara clenched her jaw and let it go.

“James, I…” she sighed. “Fine. I owed you all a story anyway. Now is probably the best time to say it anyway. After the shower.”

James nodded, and Keshaara ignored the others. This was all she needed. James to understand.

* * *

Her shower took a little longer than she had expected, mostly because the temperature of the water was impossible to nail down. Too cold, and it ached when the water touched it, too warm and it stung. She took her time, washing the blood away carefully, holding a washcloth to her wounds and trying to assess how bad everything was.

It was certainly painful, that much was made clear. She had broken bones and gashes and claw wounds from a dragon. That was never made easy. Dragonfighting hurt, no matter how good one was at it, and Keshaara was out of practice. She scrubbed tears out of her eyes at the thought. She had not had to be Dovahkiin in a very long time, and now it was coming back around to bite her in the ass.

She had to ignore the spear of pain in her heart. Akatosh was going to hunt down the graves of her family and bring her their grave-gifts. The thought did not make anything easier.

James waited patiently outside her bathroom, guarding her spare clothes, and handing her bandages and surgical thread without being asked. Keshaara grumbled at that, but did not reject the gifts. She stitched and bandaged herself back together, using some of the bandages to brace her broken bones, even though she knew it was a mostly futile task. But she knew James would worry if she didn’t at least give the appearance of taking care of herself.

When she finally peeked out of her bathroom , James was standing there, waiting for her. She had put Farhan’s knife in a sheath and put that sheath on her hip.

“You bandaged everything?”

“Yes, James.”

His eyes narrowed for a moment, and Keshaara stared back.

“Fine. Come on. The others are waiting for us in the kitchen.”

She sighed.

“Fantastic.”

* * *

She made herself comfortable on the couch, curling up around a ice pack that she had claimed as her own for situations like this. Not that she had ever envisioned something like this happening, but for lesser cases of emotional trauma, the cold pack had come in quite helpful.

The Avengers formed a loose circle around her, with her at the head of it. She waited for everyone to settle, and then waited a while longer as she tried to figure out where to begin the story. They wanted answers, that much was clear. She had promised stories for a long time, and now, it seemed, there was no way to avoid having to tell them.

“Where do you want me to start?”

“The beginning, Kesh.”

She rolled her eyes.

“That is a long time ago.”

“We have time.”

She sighed and curled tighter around the cold pack, trying to eke out the few comforts she could still bear. It reminded her of Loki.

“The Tale of the Dovahkiin started before I was born…” she started.

Over the next hours, she told them everything. Her first panicked moments in Skyrim as she realized she could not cross back over the border, the terror as she was captured and put on a cart, headed to her own execution. The first time she saw Akatosh-as-Aludin. The first bite that turned her into a vampire. Her skooma addiction that would rear its ugly head after all the people she had loved was dead.

She told them of her rise to Thaneship, the meaning of Dovahkiin. Keshaara told them of her marriage, of finding someone in Farkas that she trusted to hold her home safely, she told them of her wounds and trials and tribulations.

After she took a deep breath, and…gathered herself, she told them of Loki.

Everything. She told them everything.

This was not like showing Fandral everything to demonstrate what home truly was. This was her, telling her story so that the Avengers would understand why she must do what she was doing.

She told them of the hesitant touches, and the not at all hesitant punches. She told them about the fear and panic, she told them about everything she did to keep him safe. She told them about making a deal with all of the Daedra through Jyggalag in order to send Loki away from her, back to where he belonged. Keshaara told them of how she followed Alduin through Sovengard and finally, finally, destroyed him.

Keshaara told them of the years that followed.

She told them all about the pain. And joy. She told them about her son, Farhan and how she came to be pregnant with him. She told them about _all_ of her children, and how she loved them. She told them about their legacies, their own families, their lineages. She told them about how it felt to stay twenty-three. How it felt to watch Farkas grey and grow frail, how it felt to walk alongside him as she was, helping him down into the darkness so he could die in glory. How it felt to do that for her sons. Her daughters. Her friends. Everyone she ever knew.

How it felt to stay on, ageless, as everyone died, and as she buried all of them with grave-gifts, to remind them in Sovengarde that she was still thinking of them. That she remembered them.

And then, how it felt, after four hundred and fifty years, twenty seven days, seven hours, and thirteen minutes, to look up and see Loki again. How different Asgard was, how she fell into Jotunheim, how everything was different, but she still remembered how to fight.

She told her side of everything that had happened there, daring Thor to try and speak against what she said with a defiant jut of her jaw. He did not challenge her, though. He listened, as everyone else did, as she talked about Loki and what they had been through together. No detail was spared. She told them everything.

She told them how she had everything.

And lost it. How she died.

How Loki killed her.

How it was right for him to do so.

How he proposed to her.

How he died.

What she lost when he did.

And when she was done, she got up, got a new coldpack from the freezer, and walked back to the couch.

“Are there any probing questions anyone would like to ask about all that?” she sighed, tucking her chin down and curling around the coldpack.

“Did you love him?” Natasha asked.

Keshaara laughed.

“I never got the chance to know, Natasha. I could have.”

“I’m sorry, Championess Keshaara.”

“So am I, Thor. So am I.”

“Are you going to be alright, Kesh?” James asked from his position next to her.

“No. Never. But I have a job to do. I have to kill Akatosh, somehow, or be killed myself. But now, as he consumes the world, there will be no Sovengarde to go to. If Loki went to Sovengarde, he is gone. If he went to your Valhalla, I cannot follow him there, can I? I am not of this multiverse, but another. I cannot see him again. I must become a gravesite for all that my world once was, or be reborn to begin this Cycle again. It is my Fate.”

James reached to put an arm around her shoulder, and Keshaara leaned into him. It was the only comfort she could bear to take in the moment. They knew what was happening now, and the knowledge that others knew what was going on did actually lessen some of the pain she felt. It helped, but not enough to truly keep herself from feeling like she was falling apart inside.


	19. Order

Keshaara fell back into her normal pattern of living. Well, as normal as anything could be after Akatosh came to her with a gift of a grave. After her telling, she went and slept for a long time, finding dreamlessness to be welcome. She slept and barely roused herself when James slunk into her room to sit next to her bed and keep watch while she slept. His presence made her relax more than she would have otherwise. Idly, she reached for his hand when he offered it, and found comfort in the connection there.

She slept for days in a row, too exhausted with living to be awake, and James came and went as needed throughout. She slept better when he was around, so she was vaguely aware of his comings and goings as he went about his day. Natasha would come in on occasion, sit where James usually sat, and tell Keshaara stories in Russian. The All-Tongue let Keshaara translate, but if she faded into sleep enough, she could ignore the innate translatory skill and be lulled by the gentle rumble of Russian.

Natasha would gently run her fingers across the back of Keshaara’s knuckles, humming her songs, and Keshaara would smile. Even in sleep, Keshaara could feel the calm, soothing presence Natasha afforded the room.

Still, Keshaara was happy when James would come back. He was close to her heart, and his presence made even her dreamless sleep skew towards something that could approximate happiness. It was the first time she truly knew peace since Loki had passed beyond her grasping.

She slept for a good while longer, fading in and out of awareness as she processed everything that had happened to her.

* * *

“Thor.”

The women and men of the Avengers looked up, startled by Keshaara’s sudden appearance in the common area of the Tower. She was disheveled, clearly just out of bed, her clothes rumpled and her eyes still bleary.

“Yes, Championess Keshaara, what is it that you need?” he asked, rising from his position on the couch.

“I have need of Mjolnir. May I borrow her for a moment?”

Thor was taken aback, and reached absently for Mjonir’s hilt. Keshaara tracked the movement, waiting with her breath caught in the back of her throat. She did need Mjolnir. Only for a moment. Only long enough to open the Bifrost and take her armor back. She was safer now, and about to embark on the last great adventure of her life. She needed her armor and her axe. Keshaara needed much more than just that, but if she had at least her armor and her weapon, she could make a start.

“Of course, Championess. Are you seeking-”

“Thor, please. Mjolnir. You can accompany me to the roof if you have a curious nature regarding this. But I need Mjolnir.”

Thor offered the weapon to her, keeping the hammer’s great head pointed away from her as a gesture of good will. Keshaara smiled at him, her lips tight and the expression leaving her eyes dull. It felt like everyone was watching as her hand closed over the leather-wrapped handle. They expected to watch her fail to hold the hammer steady after Thor released it, expected to see her fall to the ground.

No matter how heroic she was, no one had ever lifted the hammer but Thor.

But Thor let go, and Keshaara remained as she had been, standing tall, Mjolnir in hand, staring down at Thor with some small glimmer of appreciation in her gaze.

“To the roof then, Thor? I have need of Heimdall. Would that he know of my calling and be prepared,” she said with a small smile and a look to the far-off sky.

* * *

Up on the roof, with the few interested parties loosely gathered by the door that led back down into the Tower, Keshaara stood with Mjolnir held loosely in her hand. She looked to the sky, as if waiting for something, or an indication from someone. Natasha, Tony and James all watched from the sidelines, standing behind Thor, and Barton had made a rare appearance, skulking along in the background, watching intently.

Keshaara took a deep breath, and took the time to test her grip on Mjolnir.

“Fair Lady, please. I merely need Heimdall to allow me to bring my armor and armaments. I do not seek to open the Bifrost fully, nor truly create a link between there and here. I only seek that which will let me defend myself from what may come.”

The hammer’s inscriptions glowed briefly, and Keshaara beamed at the weapon.

“Thank you.”

She lifted the hammer overhead and was immediately consumed by the blisteringly bright kaleidoscope of light. The gathered people, save for Thor, turned their heads, closing their eyes against the brightness of the opening of the Bifrost. The lights flashed brighter, and brighter still, before vanishing, just as quickly as they had appeared.

 

What the Avengers beheld in that moment was nothing short of awe-inspiring.

Keshaara stood, tall and proud, in the armor she had made to wear to stand beside Loki in. Her axe was at her hip. Her pack was there too. Her head was crowned in gold and obsidian, with chips of citrine dangling down from the circlet. She dripped gold and orange and ash, as she had always meant to. All that was missing were the marks of the Ashland, and that could be fixed with ease.

The sunlight glinted off armor that had yet to see any battle save for ones of the heart, and dazzled the eyes as gloriously as the Bifrost had done. For a moment, Keshaara did not move, and instead stood, face to the heavens, her eyes closed and hand still clenched tight around Mjolnir. She took deep, steadying breaths, trying to keep from sobbing.

Because this was more overwhelming than she had thought it would be.

To stand, no matter where she truly was, in the armor she had meant to wear with Loki by her side as her husband-to-be, it hurt. Her heart felt like it was being crushed beneath the weight of her armor and ached.

Divines, it ached.

She shook her head and turned to look at her new friends.

New friends, new life, repeat ad nauseum with no end in sight.

Such was her life.

“Kesh, that’s…wow. Different.”

She smiled at James.

“No, you have it the wrong way round, James. _This_ is more like me than anything else you have seen. I was consort to a Prince, progenitor of a dynasty, killer of a unkillable god as a dragon. This is me. And always has been. Even if I never wanted it. This is me.”

Her smile was wry, and not at all heartfelt. Carefully, she handed Mjolnir back to Thor. For a moment, his hand closed over hers, and Keshaara had to bite back her momentary revulsion at his touch.

“Championess, I am…sorry.”

“Just so, Thor.”

His face fell fractionally and he pulled away. Keshaara met his gaze with unflinching accusation. He had taken from her, and she would never forget it.

“I ask that the rest of you please leave for now. I must summon a God of mine to converse.”

Everyone gathered stared at her strangely.

“It’s best if you are not here when I summon Jyggalag. He is…unkind. As Daedra usually are. I must speak with him. I need to understand.”

James clenched his hand.

“Kesh,” he started, but she held up a gloved hand.

“This is not negotiable. Jyggalag will destroy you. It is likely he will destroy me as well.”

“That doesn’t make it easier, Kesh,” he grit out through clenched teeth.

Her only response was a single shrug of her shoulder. James reached for her, resting his hand on her shoulder.

“You don’t have to do this alone, Kesh.”

She laughed and shook her head.

“Of course I do, that is what it means to be Dovahkiin, James. I am alone, even with all my friends with me. That is my curse.”

* * *

She knelt, as was proper, head bowed, a mockery of true penitence. She knew it would not truly impress Jyggalag. It was a good thing that she was not here to impress the Daedra. After everything she had been through, she had earned her irreverence. She wanted to give at least some appearance of piety, for Jyggalag’s sake.

Hells, she was not even certain that this summoning would work. This was not his temple, and he had no draw to this place save for Keshaara herself. If it did not work, she was not certain that this half-formed plan in her mind would even be feasible. She needed to know more. Because if what Akatosh had intimated was true, if what she had started to put together in her mind was correct, then there was truly something more that she needed.

But she needed answers.

So she reached deep within herself, finding the threads that connected her back to her homeland, and _pulled_.

Ξ So, after all this time, you call me back, Dovahkiin. Ξ

Jyggalag’s voice had not been softened by the ages. His frame filled her vision, but within moments, he had shrunk to a manageable size. His armor was still truly daedric, jagged and sharp, and he stood at sharp, militant attention in front of her. Keshaara did not rise, but she did stare him squarely in the eye, a challenge in the set of her jaw.

“Yes, Jyggalag. I have need of you once more.”

The great Daedra sighed, and to Keshaara’s immense surprise, removed his helm and sat before her. She beheld the face of the Daedra without flinching.

Ξ I know. Akatosh seeks to begin the Cycle again. To do that, he must destroy you. Ξ

“But why?”

Ξ The Cycles have always been as such. The world is created, it thrives, you come, you defeat him as World-eater, you die of old age with family, and then he rises again, to destroy the world and consume us all once again. The world is created…and then it thrives…some of the details shift from Cycle to Cycle, but there are always constants. There is order, and then chaos, and then order again. Ξ

“I don’t understand.”

The great Daedra sighed anew.

Ξ I know it is hard for your mind to understand. But the world of Tamriel has existed and been destroyed many times. Ξ

“No, I do understand that part. I don’t understand why you allow the Cycle to continue. Your realm is Order. But you allow it, and its chaos.”

Ξ I do not have a choice. Ξ

“There is always a choice.”

Jyggalag huffed. He sounded more like a petulant child than the great Daedra of Order, and Keshaara could not help her laugh.

Ξ No, Dovahkiin. There is no choice. I cannot defeat Akatosh. If I succumb to him, my part in the next Cycle is assured. He consumes, and then recreates. It is as inescapable as your birth and rebirth. Ξ

“But-”

Ξ No, Dovahkiin. Listen and hear me, and hear me well. This is the first time – the _first_ time where the world has deviated so strongly from the path Akatosh set for it. There is more Chaos than there has ever been, and while I cannot abide by Sheograth’s insanity, there is no hope to end it all, Dovahkiin. Ξ

It was Keshaara’s turn to sigh. She reached up to rub at the bridge of her nose.

“I know the Daedra and Aedra are given over to long speeches on how things work and all that, but please. I do not know how much time I have until Akatosh returns and I need to know how I can kill him so that he doesn’t kill me first.”

Ξ You seek to kill Akatosh? Ξ

“Yes.”

Ξ Doing so…you would take his soul into you, as you do with the great dragons. Ξ

“That was my purpose, as I was told it, yes.”

Ξ And you are mortal, now? Ξ

“Well, Loki killed me, and then revived me, but I’ve not taken an axe to my neck to see how well that fixed the curse you afflicted me with.”

Ξ Not a curse, not a curse for you Dovahkiin. A prayer. If you could live long enough, if you could continue being as anomalous as you were this Cycle…I had hoped you could do something truly fantastic. Ξ

“Which would be what, exactly.”

Ξ Kill us all before Akatosh does. Take our power into you. Become our cairn. Kill him, end the cycle. You are mortal in a way we are not. You are mortal and your purpose has always been to slay dragons. We are but dragons. You are a dragonslayer. If you kill us all, and resist Akatosh’s attempt to kill you, and take all that he has taken into himself into you… Ξ

“When I die, the Cycles all end.”

Ξ _Yes_. Ξ

“And that will be perfect-”

Ξ _Order_. Ξ

“So you…”

Ξ Take my life, Dovahkiin. End the Cycles. Ξ

Keshaara hesitated. Jyggalag didn’t. He rose over her and reached for his sword. She had no choice, and her instincts would not let her be endangered when such a clear target was presented. Jyggalag had made it clear that he wanted to die, but the threat would force her to act.

Her axe was a familiar weight, and for the first time, her armor was touched by blood. Her aim had not suffered in the time away from her favored weapon, and Jyggalag was smiling as she slit his throat. He fell, and she sagged as his essence roared into her.

For a long while, all she could hear was the rush of power in her ears.

His sudden presence in her, as Jyggalag became her, and she lost part of herself to him. Her teeth chattered and she struggled to stay on her feet. Jyggalag was gone. There was Keshaara, and nothing else. The first Daedra was dead. There were others, of course there were. But right now, Keshaara wanted to take a shower and…she wanted to drink. Anything to stop the screaming new thoughts encroaching upon her mind. Jyggalag was as ancient as the dragons she had fought, but infinitely more powerful. Not even Paarthurnax’s soul had thrown her this hard, and she had been nearly out of _her_ mind by the time _his_ had forced itself upon her.

Keshaara shivered.

And shook her head.

She had done what was right. Always, what was right.

* * *

The shower had not made her feel better. The showerhead had a problem. Not all the drops of water would come out simultaneously, and more frustratingly, their rhythm was off. The falling pattern was chaotic and no matter how she tried to alter the flow of the water, the pattern never fully oriented itself.

That chaos was enough to set her teeth to grinding.

She tried to organize her room to make her feel better but it wasn’t even close to being enough. There was so much wrong so much out of pace so much that grated her nerves so much that could be right if it was just _gone_ just make it go _away_ because it was _wrong_ and and she wanted it to be right she wanted it to be right she wanted it to be **right**.

James’ hand on her arm broke her out of her trance. Keshaara crashed back down into herself with a gasp, and stared at him. She was standing in the kitchen, working on organizing all the dishes and flatwear that the Avengers used, and there was a concerned look on his face.

“You look bad, Kesh.”

Her grin was forced.

“I feel awful.”

James frowned.

“What do you need?”

“I think…I think I need to not be in here right now. I think that would be better. I don’t want to be in the Tower right now James, I think everything is just too much because of…because, because I can’t handle it. I can’t handle it. I need to be somewhere else. I need to go, James, I’m so sorry. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

He only nodded mutely as Keshaara backed away from him, towards the door.

“Kesh, you’ll be okay. I’m here if you need me. Take your phone, just in case.”

“It’s in my pocket,” she mumbled, knowing that she was lying because it was in a very organized series of pieces on the floor by her bed because it made more _sense_ to make it like _that_.

“Take mine, then. Call home if something happens, alright?”

“Thanks, James. I will call.”

“I will hold you to that, Keshaara.”

She nodded. Her mind was a mess, her thoughts were not wholly her own, and she knew that. But her heart was beating out of her chest, and there was so much disorder in her, in her presence, in her very existence, that anything other than movement, anything other than seeking something to drown out the whispering. So she fled.

* * *

The club had not originally been her destination. She had not even been thinking about it, not truly. She just _wanted_ something. Anything. Anything at all that would stop the cycle of thoughts in her head. Jyggalag’s presence would fade, she knew that. But in the moment, that knowledge did not soothe her. She needed something more, and something more was what she hoped to find, as the same man from her first visit to the peculiar club called out to her.

He guided her into the club as he had done before, but this time, he had only to take a single look at her to know that she was not looking for food or anything else.

“This way, Miss. Please, we have a room ready for you.”

She did not want to ask any questions about how there was a room ready for her before she had even decided that she was coming to this place. It did not matter because the room she was led to was soothingly, amazingly, perfectly _ordered_. It did not matter that there was obviously only one purpose for this room. It did not matter because everything was almost sterile in how neat it was. Everything was so soothingly _right_ that Keshaara just stood still in the room for a long while, clenching and unclenching her hands.

“Oh, _luv_ , you came **back**?” a half-familiar voice purred from behind her.

Keshaara did not turn, not until she heard the door click shut behind him.

“I want,” she grit out.

“Then I will _give_ , my pet.”

Keshaara trembled. She was not a woman given over to enjoyment of diminutive names, she did not care for the terms and the way it put her in a position beneath another. But he said pet and her mind whispered _order_ at her, and it was so easy. So easy.

“What do you want, pet?”

She licked her teeth and turned to him. He was staring at her, more disheveled than he had been previously. There was the hinting of bruises and cuts littering his skin, and his ribs stood out in stark relief against his too-pale skin. He looked as shitty as she felt. That made her feel only marginally better.

“For tonight, vampire. I want to belong to you. Just for tonight. Do what you want with me, just make me yours for tonight.”

He growled and pulled her closer to him by the hem of her pants. Keshaara melted into him, not touching him with her own hands, but still pressing herself to him.

“Why,” he snarled, wildness touching his crimson eyes. “Why would you let yourself be owned by someone like me, if only for the night? What would drive you to _this_ , damn it?”

“I want to feel like there is an order to the universe. Give me order, give me purpose. Give me whatever you deem me worthy of. I need…I need to belong to someone, to some _where_ and I have nothing. I have nothing, just let me feel _something_.”

His face fell for a moment, his mouth hung open, and he stared. But he recovered quickly and reached up to cradle her face with both of his hands.

“Pet, I want your word…”

She did not want to let him finish.

“My safety word is wildfire. Please, just make me feel like there is purpose in my presence. Please.”

He sagged against her, pressing a kiss too sweet for what they were doing to her cheek, then to her forehead.

“Of…course, pet. Anything for you.”

* * *

Breathing was…breathing. She tried to organize her thoughts and failed. It was _perfect._ Everything fell apart as soon as she tried to order them and it made it so easy.

Her arms were tied, wrist to elbow, behind her back. She was kneeling, naked, trussed up better than she had ever been tied before. The vampire made rope-tying an artform, and she submitted willingly because it gave her such clarity. If she moved inappropriately, the ropes around her neck tightened, just enough to make breathing a difficulty until she settled back into her proper position.

She could not move, not without either tweaking a limb or sending arousal searing through her, courtesy of the ropes tied between her legs, and the knots nestling up against her clit, some slid in between the lips of her pussy. There was an ornate gag that he had had her close her mouth over, and then he had tied back into the rest of her bindings, completing the sensory overload of it all.

He was sitting next to her, his legs crossed neatly at the knee, one hand in her hair, gently caressing her scalp as he read his book. Keshaara could not actually see if he was actually reading, but every few minutes, she would hear the rasp of a page turning, and the arrhythmia of the timing between the turning pages made her shudder.

There was precious little she could see from her position, and that was not necessarily a bad thing. It left her with nothing to obsess over.

And as soon as she settled down, as soon as her mind finally acknowledged that there was nothing that needed order as long as she submitted properly to this vampire, the nervousness and anxiety that had plagued her fell away. Keshaara felt herself drop down deep into submission, and surrendered utterly to the vampire. It was only partially out of trust that she was so willing to succumb.

The other reason, she was still content to keep hidden.

For now.

He tightened his hand in her hair, pulling harshly, jerking her head towards him. Keshaara sighed around her gag, and slumped against his chair, not minding the pull of the ropes against her breasts and back. She liked it. He tugged on her hair harder and she made a half-sobbing moan. It was blessedly muffled by her gag. The semblance of not having her voice made her tremble. No one could truly take her voice from her. But she could pretend.

She could pretend.

“Pet, I can smell your slick quim dripping. Are you that eager for me?”

Keshaara mewled.

His hand tightened in her hair again, almost cruelly. It was enough to make her eyes roll up into the back of her head. He bit back his own moan as she went boneless against his leg.

“I want an _answer_ , pet. Are you that eager?”

She nodded quickly, pressing her cheek to his thigh. Her hips rocked fruitlessly against the ropes that bound her, doing nothing more than driving rational thought further from her grasp.

“Oh, I do so love it when you are that needy for me. Hold for a moment, pet.”

Keshaara held very still, waiting for what he planned for her. Blessedly, she did not have to wait long. He stood up out of his chair, placed his book where he had been sitting and stood in front of her. Keshaara was ever so careful to only look as high as his belt, knowing that her position was not one that allowed her to look him in the eye. She was subservient. Beneath. Below.

He unzipped his pants and pulled his cock free. Keshaara worked her jaw harshly against her gag. Her vampire gave a few good pumps of his hand over his cock, and she watched his every movement with a hunger that rivaled his. He smirked at her, not that she could see it.

“Do you want my cock in your mouth?” he purred, palming his cock.

Keshaara nodded quickly, whimpering. Order demanded it. She needed it. It belonged. Entropy. Chaos. The cosmic needs of the universe dictated that she and him be together. Like this. Inverse from this. Any iteration of this. This was what was needed. This was correct, this was everything. There was no order without this, there was only chaos without this. She needed him in a way that was inescapable and unknowable. He was her sun, he was her light. He was the color of her blood, the taste of her breath. He was everything and nothing and she wanted him she wanted him she wanted him. They should be one they should be one they should be one. More than anything in the world and all the Realms, she belonged with him and they needed to be -

“You’re thinking too hard.”

He reached forward and unlatched her gag so that she could open her mouth fully. Carefully, he brushed his thumbs across the abraded corner of her mouth. There were only small flashes of pain from the movement, and he tutted when she refused to flinch away from the pain. She leaned into his touches, sucking his thumbs into her mouth and swirling her tongue along the pads of his fingers. He choked on his words and trembled.

Keshaara only suckled harder on his fingers, bobbing her head up and down on his thumbs. He gasped and pulled his thumbs wide, spreading her mouth open so he could slide his cock against her lips. She trembled and licked at the head of his cock, trying to taste him. It was the only disobedience she had in her – to try and bring him pleasure before he was ready to have her give it to him.

Her reward was his guttered-out moan and a sudden sharp thrust. And with that, all hope was rather lost for a slow, sensual tease. Her vampire cursed vehemently, and grabbed her by the back of her head, to better have control over how fast she worked him over. He bit his cheek to keep from babbling, but oh by the _Norns_ it felt _good_.

“Gods, your mouth was made for my cock,” he moaned, nearly collapsing in half over her still-bound form as Keshaara worked her lips and tongue and teeth across his cock.

The gentle rasp of teeth edged pain into his pleasure and the immediate, near-apologetic lapping of her tongue wherever her teeth had been soothed pain down. He tugged on her hair, just enough to echo his pain back to her, and she melted into him anew. With a sound muffled by his cock in her mouth, Keshaara moaned, nodding either in agreement to what he had just said, or just to bequeath more sensation upon him. Regardless, it made him hiss.

She grinned up at him, a thrill settling deep in her gut at her disobedience. Chaos roared at her, but arousal roared louder.

He reached down to her mouth, and pushed her off of his cock. Keshaara whimpered with disappointment, not entirely willing to be done with having her mouth on his cock. But he crooked his fingers beneath some of the ropes on her. When he tugged, she felt the rope bite in, rasping the sensitive flesh of the underside of her breasts and tightening in between her legs.

She gasped, her eyes rolling as he held that pressure in place. All she could do was make small, fruitless movements of her hips against the ropes, but there was no chance for her to gain any sort of concrete pleasure out of it all. It just edged her closer to madness.

She understood Sheograth.

She understood Jyggalag.

He lifted her easily, pulling her up to her feet before pushing her down against the bed. Keshaara couldn’t even remember how he had backed her up against the bed or anything in the interim. But she felt his fingers at the ropes that were rasping at her clit, and she sobbed. Her arms were still pinned beneath her, still tied in place, but just the feeling of his hands on her was enough to drive her to moan and gasp and writhe. He undid the knots there, freeing her from the tension and pressure.

She begged for more, she begged for more at such length that she felt his fingers stop their gentle touching.

“A-ah! No!” she mewled, arching up, trying to find his touch again.

He pressed a palm to her hip, and held her down so he could lean over her again. She stared up at him, panting and desperate for anything more.

“‘No?’” he parroted back to her, smirking entirely too much like –

“ _Loki,_ please!”

The words came out of her before she could stop them, and it took her far too long to realize she had committed one of the cardinal sins of fucking. Never call a current lover by a past one’s name. She bit her lip and screwed her eyes shut, not willing to come to terms with the fact that she had done something so –

“Now, pet, I never told you my name, so don’t go making it up.”

She tensed, and looked back to him. He was smiling, his fangs long and sharp. He pressed down against her, nuzzling her neck, nipping only just hard enough to leave red marks behind. Keshaara’s eyes fluttered and she submitted to the feeling. The hand on her hip tightened hard enough to bruise near immediately and he bit her as he slid his cock against her puffy, slick pussy.

She sobbed brokenly on her apology, and he grunted something into her neck. Keshaara was powerless beneath him, and she knew it. She reveled in it. He rocked his cock back and forth against her, taunting them both with the nearness of their passion. He drank her blood, and taunted her, and Keshaara had to stay still and take it all.

His fangs slid slowly out of her neck.

“I don’t think I need to give you a name to call me, pet. I own you tonight. You are _mine_ ,” he growled.

“I belong to _no one_. Least of all _you_ ,” she snarled back, baring her teeth at him. “I am my own and no one else’s.”

“We’ll see, pet. I’ll make you scream your fealty to me if I have to. I have nowhere else to be tonight.”

Keshaara huffed, and snapped her teeth in irritation.

He snickered, and thrust into her harshly. Keshaara bit the tip of her tongue and tried to deny the deep twist of heat that coiled low in her gut at the sudden intrusion, and then abrupt cessation of his movement. He bit her again, and drank her blood greedily, moaning into her neck. She bit back her own moan at the sound, and hitched her leg high on his hip.

“Are you getting impatient?” he purred at her, smearing blood across her neck as he thrust into her just once again. “Did you want my cock?”

She bit her lip instead of responding. She was not going to give him the pleasure of it. Not just yet. She was still tied down and helpless beneath him. Keshaara could fix that with a single flex of her muscles, but she did not want to. Not yet.

He reached down and pinched her clit cruelly, biting her shoulder as she started to whimper.

“Beg me pet. Beg for the privilege. You owe me that after calling his name.”

Keshaara squirmed.

Slowly, slowly, he started shallow thrusts into her. All the while, he kept the pressure on her clit, rolling the oversensitive nub between his fingers. Keshaara managed to hold out against her vocalizations longer than she thought she could, finding pride before she found rational. She was _not_ going to give him the pleasure of hearing her beg after that. It was not her fault her heart bore scars and this vampire was not the person who had the right to try and push on half-healed wounds.

“Beg.”

He thrust harder, growling obscenities beneath his breath. She bit her tongue until she tasted blood.

“No,” came her panted response.

He kissed her then, ferocious and demanding, moaning as he tasted her blood in her mouth. His tongue danced sin across her own, and he did not let her up until she was breathless all over again. He pulled on the collar of rope until she was struggling to breathe, and smirked against her mouth when she whimpered. Her hips jerked up against his, grinding against him, seeking pleasure out of the pleasure-pain.

But he noticed the movement, the flush of her chest, the way she was straining against the ropes, and stopped, withdrawing his hand from her clit and wrapping it around her throat.

“Beg.”

She bit her lip and looked away. Keshaara could withstand this.

He chuckled at her reticence, and licked at the bite wounds he had inflicted upon her. Agonizingly slowly, he circled his hips, grinding his cock deep inside of her. _That_ gained him another sob, one she tried bite back behind her teeth. But he heard, and he grinned down at her. Carefully, he pushed himself up off of her, and reached down to where his cock vanished inside of her.

For a long moment, he just stared down at her, breathing harshly through his nose and this time, biting his own lip, hard enough to send rivulets of blood spearing down his chin.

“I want you on your stomach, pet.”

She could have easily said that his voice wavered on ‘pet’, that she detected some manner of hesitance there. But instead, she did her best to roll herself onto her belly, and the vampire assisted, if only to keep her from kicking him in the face.

Again, he muttered something, but she could not catch it. With her face pressed down into the mattress and her legs bent at an awkward angle, Keshaara grumbled. The game had lost much of its allure, and she was starting to feel the chafing from the ropes around her arms.

Then the vampire started fucking her again, and that very quickly demolished all semblance of thought from her. He was relentless, pounding into her with enough force to make her feel as if his cock reached halfway through her gut, holding onto her hips like she was trying to escape. With her arms tied as they were, Keshaara had no chance of escaping. Every thrust pushed her forward, and every retraction slid her back.

It did not take her long to start moaning again, and not long after that until he was providing a baritone counterpoint to her own song of pleasure. Just as she reached that singular plateau of bliss, he stopped, stilling himself entirely and all at once behind her. Keshaara cursed floridly, tensing and trying to buck back against his cock, but he held her still.

“Beg!” he barked, thrusting once more for effect.

Keshaara hissed, but did not comply.

 

And it continued much the same way for hours.

 

She would come to that cusp of glory, and he would stop her, and hold her still until she unwound just far enough for the cusp to be beyond her grasp again. Every time, he would ask her to beg, but she did not relent. She refused. Her pride, shrill and impossible, screamed defiance every time he commanded her to beg him for pleasure.

That could only last for so long, however.

Eventually pride began to quiet and need began to begin a litany of its own.

Her back was slick with sweat, and her hair stuck uncomfortably to the nape of her neck. Her skin was rubbed raw in too many places, and she smelled blood from more than just the bite wounds. She was overtaxing her body, she knew that, but she still had pride. She still _had_ pride. Pride, which was fading with every thrust from the vampire, pride, which was slowly giving way to desire, pride that sounded far less enticing the more he played her body like an instrument.

The next time he stopped, the next time he pulled her hair and seated himself fully inside of her, leaning over her body so he could hiss “ _Beg_ ” in her ear, she did.

“ _Please_ , please I want to cum, please just let me cum!” she rasped, her voice blown out from everything else that had been wrought upon her body. “I want it, please!”

“Beg the person whose name you called me by. Fall upon his mercy for your pleasure if you seek him instead of me,” her vampire whispered.

Keshaara shuddered, and for the barest of moments, pride objected (what does he do to deserve knowing Loki’s name, how dare he call upon me to call upon Loki, he has not earned it) and then need responded (Loki, Divines I miss _Loki_ ) –

“Loki, **please** , please! I miss you, please, please let me cum. I need-” her voice broke in a reedy howl as the vampire finally pushed all the right buttons all at once.

She could not stop the words now that they had started coming from her, and all the way through her orgasm and his, she screamed her desire for the one she had lost. The vampire pulled her up against him, holding her to his chest as he savagely bit her left shoulder. He sank his teeth as far into her as he could, and he drank as deeply as he could manage.

Keshaara lost herself to pinpoints of white pleasure-pain, and did not come back to herself until he was helping her out of the ropes, and making sure that the abrasions she had suffered were not too extreme. Carefully, he helped her stretch her aching limbs out, even as she struggled against him.

He wasn’t _Loki_.

But for a moment, she could’ve convinced herself of that.

He fetched her water and her clothes, and carefully set to bandaging the more severe bite-wounds, and apologizing beneath his breath when he saw how raw the underside of her breasts had ended up. Keshaara, still in a pleasant haze, waved him off, and quickly dressed herself. She did not mind the abrasions, the raw skin, or the stiffness. They were reminders. They focused her.

This was not Loki.

This was a vampire who played her to get a meal.

That was acceptable, but she was not willing to play it as if it were anything else.

“Thank you,” she said, when she found her words again.

The _ORDER_ of Jyggalag had faded to the back of her mind, eased in its passing by the vampire’s masterful playing of her body. She had enough of herself again to hold onto it, even in the face of Daedric power. She was Keshaara. Alone and scared and brokenhearted, yes. But Keshaara nonetheless. She had work to do.

“Be safe, please, pet?” he asked as she pulled her coat on and checked her pocket for James’ cell phone.

“There is an odd request,” she whispered, her voice still rough from the abuse.

“One does not spend an evening with a beautiful woman tied up and at their disposal without wanting to make certain that they get home safely.”

Keshaara looked at the vampire queerly, her eyes narrowed in focus.

“Are you going to be safe, then, sir vampire? I have handled many things similar to this many times before, and I feel far better now than I did upon entering. But I would not be so quick to leave if you needed me to stay a while.”

She knew that sometimes, even when one was in control through something as intense as that, the letdown, the finishing of the moment could leave the dominant one in a depressed state, as easily as it left the submissive one in such as well. This relationship between the two of them may be odd, and hells, it was not even really a relationship, but the vampire had done her a kindness twice now, and she was not a woman to take such things lightly.

For a moment, the vampire did not look to her, but screwed his mouth down in a scowl. Then, almost as if he regretted the action before taking it, he hesitantly held his arms out to her.

“I would like…a hug. Please. You can be on your way after that. I just want to…I want to know you are alright.”

“And my words cannot tell you that well enough?” she snarked, taking steps back towards the vampire, regardless.

He looked as if she had struck him with her words, and almost retreated from her. But Keshaara was quicker, and swept him up into a tight hug, pressing herself close to him, burying her face in his neck, letting him feel the strength in her arms and legs, and the stability of her breath. She was well and fine, and yes, hugs were perfectly acceptable ways to discover that. The vampire returned the hug after a stunned moment, holding her as if she were made of spun sugar, afraid of her falling to pieces in his arms.

“I will be safe. As safe as one like me can be, vampire,” she said, stepping away gracefully. “But for now, I think I would like to go home and take a nap.”

The vampire laughed, but it was a sound without mirth. He waved her away, and she went, leaving the club without a second glance. She felt immensely better. Reinvigorated. She felt like _Keshaara_ again.

 

 

He tasted bile in his throat, and his hands shook with rage and fear all the same. He felt like he had lost his name, for it sounded sweet on her tongue, but she could not lay it upon him. Not yet. No, he had to be the stranger to her.

There was no universe big enough to contain his rage.


	20. Quiver

She stumbled back into the Tower a few hours later.

Not that she was intoxicated or anything, but she was, in fact, _very_ tired. Exhausted. Mostly because she had just had some very _intense_ sex and her endorphin rush had run out on her about halfway into her adventure to get back to where she was living. Blessedly, it was late enough at night that there was no one else up as she made her way up the few flights of stairs to the main living area, where she collapsed onto the couch without bothering to kick her shoes off.

Keshaara woke up briefly in the night, confused by the rustling sounds coming from near her feet. James looked up at her, in the middle of taking her shoes off, and she smiled weakly before falling back asleep.

She was too tired to try for anything else.

In the morning, she was awoken by Clint in the kitchen, making breakfast for himself. Keshaara blinked the sleep out of her eyes and sat up. Muscles protested and burned, and incidental contact with the chafed raw parts of her wrists made her hiss. She did not move to heal the wounds, however. Keshaara still needed to feel the pain and burn of what had happened. To know it was real, to know that it had happened and she had found _order_ in following the commands of another.

Still, she rubbed at the raw skin, wincing.

“Good morning, Barton,” she offered, nodding politely.

“Good morning, Keshaara.”

She blinked. That was an uncommon greeting from someone who usually did not give her more than a precursory nod in recognition.

“Do you need any help with preparing the meal?”

“No, I have it under control, thanks.”

That was more common reaction, really. She shrugged and went about preparing her own meal, giving Barton a wide berth, just in case he did not want her near him. It made cooking a little difficult to constantly give him the space she perceived he needed. She did not want to get in his space or make him uncomfortable by being too near to her.

“Why do you _do_ that?”

“Do…what?” she asked, looking for what it was that she could have done to upset Barton. She hadn’t managed to get him with any of the grease from the sausages she was cooking, she didn’t think, and she had let him have access to the better burner on the stove, and all the elbow room he could possibly need, even as an archer, but clearly, she had done something wrong.

“Not come near me? Call me “Barton”? Why?”

“I…I didn’t want to intrude. I know you had dealings with Loki. I did not want to, uh, make you uncomfortable with me.”

He stared at her, his eyes piercing and calculating.

“You think that I would hold Loki’s actions against you?”

“That has been my experience ever since I left Tamriel – excuse me, my home planet. Everyone holds me accountable for what Loki did, as I was his Champion and lover. Not that a lot of people knew about that second part of it, but he did seek my hand when I was available for courtship.”

“I see. But that doesn’t explain why you won’t come near me.”

“I have been inside Loki’s mind, and I was possessed by the Tesseract. I saw what it did. Even if it was the Scepter controlling you, and not the Tesseract itself, I still saw what happened. I didn’t want to presume.”

Clint looked at her oddly.

“I still don’t understand.”

“I’m sorry, then. Would you like me to stop being…like that, around you?”

He stared at her. She stared back, undisturbed by the emotions she felt hiding in his eyes.

Clint did not give her a response, just turned back to preparing his meal, and she went back to her own as well. Keshaara did her best to give him more access into her personal space before she moved away, but even as she did so, she saw his mouth twist down into a frown again. Uncertainty touched her every move throughout their morning preparations, because she did not know what Clint could possibly want, other than for her to stop doing whatever it was that she was doing that was upsetting him.

She gathered her plate, placed her dirtied dishes in the sink and carefully slunk away from Clint, finding her place back on the couch, balancing her plate on her knees as she started to eat. Forgoing utensils had been accidental, but honestly, Keshaara did not like most of the utensils Earth had. The forks were too thin, the spoons not sturdy enough and Aedra save her, the knives were not worth the title. Her meal wasn’t hard to eat without utensils, anyway, so she hummed happily to herself and ate, licking the juices that dripped down her fingers, and all around enjoying her food.

Clint sat next to her, not within her personal space, but close enough to be within arm’s reach. Keshaara tapped down on her urge to lean away from him to give him the extra inch and a half of space.

All of her interactions with him had been colored by the knowledge of what Loki had done to Clint. She had seen it. Once, in Loki’s mind as she searched for the understanding she would need to summon his armor, and again, when she held the Tesseract within her and understood all. She did not want to hurt him. But she hurt everyone around her, it seemed, and while she was still new to Earth, while she was still trying to really understand herself in her new surroundings (with the assistance of a smirking vampire who loved to fuck her senseless), she did not want to upset anyone unduly.

“You’re still doing it,” Clint said, almost bored.

Keshaara sighed.

“Sorry. Habitual thing. I have tics like that, I guess. I just want to make other people happy. Comfortable, at the very least.”

“Why?”

“I am Dovahkiin. People are – _were_ generally unnerved by that fact. Too much power in a single mortal coil, too much strength and force of will, too much and too many for most people. Betimes, it was useful, especially when I needed something from someone or needed to ensure that they would do what I needed from them. But...I am aware of people being leery of me.”

Clint hummed beneath his breath, considering her words carefully. Keshaara allowed him his time, going back to her own food, keeping her further thoughts to herself until Clint cleared his throat and reached his hand to get her attention. Keshaara turned her head to give him her attention.

“You are not what I expected.”

“I hear that a lot, Clint. Since I was...much younger, actually. Can you imagine looking at a twenty year old and conceptualizing them as the savior of your world? The only thing that stands between your safety and the destruction of everything? It is not easy for many people.”

He laughed.

“I've heard weirder things, really. Done and seen things weirder too. If you're asking me to believe that you are this awe-inspiring hero from where you are from, I guess there's not too much I can say against it. You can do more than me, at least.”

“Well, you don't have any enchantments on your bow, so that really doesn't take much.”

The words were out of her mouth before Keshaara could think to soften them, biting and sharp with the disdain born of an expert looking upon the sub-par weaponry of another. Her lip curled up as her mind devised a hundred thousand ways to improve the weapon she had interacted with. It had nothing on it to help him, and his armor had been nonexistent. Which was not helpful in their brief fight, and even less helpful for future fights.

She sighed and scrubbed her face as she recognized what she had said.

“Sorry, sorry. Habit, again. I've ripped shitty weapons out of so many hands that I can't help it. Your bow is awful. It doesn't have any enchantment on it and you don't wear any armor. In a fight, that's useless.”

“Up until _recently_ I really didn't have to worry about overpowered superheroes crawling out of the woodwork and holes in the sky and insulting my bow and I don't really think I can be blamed for not exactly being prepared for these sorts of shenanigans.”

Keshaara laughed.

“ 'Shenanigans'? Really?”

“What _else_ would you call Thor and his stupid fucking hammer?”

“...Fair enough point, I suppose. His whole thing does seem to be some manner of shenanigan. I'm certain my own presence here counts as such as well.”

Clint chuckled. For a moment, there was pleasant silence between the two of them. Not yet wholly comfortable, but it gave the both of them the time they needed to settle themselves back down. Conversations between two people who met and interacted as they had done could rarely be called wholly successful on the very first go.

Keshaara was more than willing to leave their conversation at that, to let Clint have his space again and to just move away. She stood to begin moving back to the kitchen, but Clint's hand on her arm stopped her.

“What's so bad about my bow, anyway?”

* * *

“ _That's_ your bow? It looks like someone cobbled it together in a drunken stupor!”

“Skooma-haze, actually. But yeah. Kinda does look like shit.”

Keshaara's correction went mostly uncommented on, save for the incredulous arch of Clint's brow. They had relocated to a part of the Tower that Tony had designed with the intent of letting Clint practice his archery. There was a gun range elsewhere, she had been told, but there was practically no reason for Keshaara to ever really need to use a gun. She shrugged at Clint's stare and carried on.

“It's one of the last weapons I made back home. It's come a long way and it is a very good bow, unlike yours. High out of my mind or no, it's a good weapon.”

Clint snorted and looked over the weapon in question. It was a single recurve bow, not a double, like his current one, and the jagged edges of it looked more likely to hurt the one shooting the bow than the one on the receiving end of the arrow. The whole thing looked rickety, worn, and not even closely approaching useful. But Keshaara held it like it was precious and powerful, regardless.

“I'm serious. Give me a target.”

“You don't even have any arr- okay _see_ that's what I'm talking about!” Clint exclaimed as a quiver of black-fletched arrows appeared at Keshaara's hip. “Those are some goddamned **_shenanigans_** , right there!”

Keshaara's smile was broad and beguiling, but she shrugged regardless.

“Target, Clint?”

He rolled his eyes and hit a button to his right, and with a loud series of whirrs, a series of targets dropped down. Keshaara didn't hesitate, pulling an arrow free, nocking it, and letting it fly in one fluid movement. She advanced as she worked through the targets, not flinching as they burst into fire every time she hit. Keshaara was out of practice, and not every shot landed exactly where she had hoped it to, but even the slight (or major) skews from dead center still had the targets bursting into unholy conflagrations of fire.

She didn't even flinch, not as targets swung wildly at her head, aiming and firing and then aiming and firing again. There was a rhythm to her movements, even through the stutters of unstretched muscles and too-old memories. Step, shoot, _fire_ , step. Shoot. _Fire_.

The enchantment held strong, after all this time.

Her magic still hummed against her hands, and Keshaara's grin was tight across her teeth. Her strength still resided in her old bones. She still had this.

With a crash, the simulation ended, and the whirring sounds that had heralded the start of the simulation clicked futilely. A shield-spell shimmered in the air around her, in case what was about to come meant more harm to her. The targets struggled to retract, and when they couldn't, there was a single large clank, before they all went slack against what held them up. Keshaara nodded and let her shield spell fall away.

She looked to Clint with a wide smile, and inclined her head slowly in a mock-bow.

“Shit lookin' bow though, you're right about that.”

Clint laughed, doubled over and shaking.

“You never said it could set things on _fire!_ ”

“You...didn't really ever ask either.”

His laughter only intensified, and Keshaara carefully picked her way back through the rubble of the range she had rather thoroughly destroyed. She let him laugh, and did not question it, because there was not much to question. Whatever it was, he found this amusing, and Keshaara was more than inclined to allow him his amusement.

Because really, it was a little funny. So much of Earth did not seem to even conceptualize how to take magic seriously, and here she was, showing of an enchanted bow to a well-renowned archer. With every intention of enchanting his bow to the best of her abilities if he asked her to do so, once he stopped his hysterics. It took a while, and Keshaara was happy to wait, looking over the destruction she had wrought with no small amount of pride.

“So can all your weapons do that?” he finally asked after his laughter had subsided and he had caught his breath.

“Well all my weapons and armor are enchanted, but not necessarily to make everything catch on fire. I just think it’s funny to make people catch on fire, is all. And it’s a good way to distract a group if someone suddenly catches on fire next to them. But there's more to enchanting than just making everything on fire. My axe steals souls, my old armor was enchanted to be lighter and stronger, my Nightingale armor is enchanted to make me nearly impossible to see or hear unless I will it. I've had staffs that shoot lightning, swords that...well, I'm sure you get the idea. There's a lot of enchantments I've done.”

Clint nodded, looking over the thoroughly destroyed room.

“So it's the bow causing this, not the arrows?”

“Yes.”

“Could you enchant the arrows?”

“Theoretically, yes. But generally arrows are only used once or twice before breaking, so it's a bit of a waste. Enchanting things without a proper setup is very tiring and I've only done it-” Keshaara's voice trailed off.

She had only done it once before. Once, for Loki, to help him find her again. It had been a cascading event. If she hadn't, if she hadn't done that so much would have been different. He would not have been on the bridge when she came through, Paarthurnax would not have seen him, Paarthurnax would not have forced him to fall, she would not have used the Tesseract, she would not be a dragon, Loki could still _live_.

The potential of that one moment was rife with pain and Keshaara found herself blinking tears out of her eyes. Clint did her the honor of not watching, pointedly turning away to let her have a moment of privacy as she struggled to shove all the feelings roaring up in her back **down**.

“Only done it the once. It's something I'd like to keep to a minimum, if possible, and arrows are multitudinous. Enchanting a bow is just a smarter way to do things. Bow, armor, big things. Makes it far easier,” she finished, taking an unneeded swipe at the corners of her eyes to make certain that no tears had fallen.

Clint gave her a moment to collect herself, not reaching out to console her, but still being a quiet presence without letting judgment cloud his gaze. Keshaara was thankful for that.

“Well, why don't you show me what your armor can do, and maybe I'll consider letting your shenanigans near my bow.”

She huffed, but smiled.

“Shenanigans, you call them. Please.”

* * *

“Yep, I was right. This is all shenanigans. The hell did you go?!”

“I didn't move, Clint. Still right where I was.”

As proof, Keshaara stood up from her crouch. With her Nightingale armor on, standing did not do much to dissipate the enchantment that kept her hidden. She was still a hazy outline of a person, fading in and out, sliding sideways out of line of sight, just barely there. In true shadows, she would still be invisible. Crouched, she was nothing more than a whisper of a presence, only detectable by the truly innately alert.

“And that's because of the enchantment?”

“Well, enchantment _s_ , and yes, partially.”

“Partially?”

“Other part is a magic that I'm doing. Not really 'magic', as in you don't need to be a mage or have mage-training to do it, but it does require knowledge of Oblivion and how to manipulate it, which is, at its base, the core thought behind doing magic on a Tamrielian level.”

Clint gave her a queer look, not trusting her words right away. Keshaara shrugged a shoulder and sat down, not minding her position in the training room. No one else was around, regardless, so it was of little importance for her to be aware of her seating arrangements.

“To be truly described as magic would require a little more focus in it. The sneak-skill is practiced by most everyone of the Thieves' Guild, and but a few of them are actually mages. It has an advantage of coming _easier_ to mages, sure, but very few things do not come easily to a mage when in regard to manipulations of the Planes and Fields of Oblivion. This skill is more about wrapping oneself _inside_ Oblivion, obscuring themselves within its folds.”

Clint's look persisted. She continued.

“It is...finding where Oblivion can hold you and stilling oneself within it. Slowing breathing, moving carefully, counting breaths as you count steps. It is the epitome of stealth, but not, necessarily, magic.”

“Alright. I'm going to guess you're still sitting where you were, because you've kind of gone hazy again.”

“That's the armor's effect, apologies. But yes. Still sitting.”

“Right.”

Keshaara waited, patiently, for Clint to ask another question or move in a way that indicated he was ready for the next topic of conversation.

“Could you teach anyone to do this?”

“Theoretically? Sure. Realistically? I'm not sure. Oblivion is not an occurrence here. The way magic works is much too different for me to think that I could teach you, when you've never experience Oblivion before. To be honest, I'm not even certain I know how I am maintaining the magic I still have. By all rights, I should be incapable of magic – this is not a Plane of Oblivion, nor are we in my universe. But I can still summon my magic to me. It is more difficult than it had been in Skyrim, and more difficult again than when I was in Asgard, but I can still use it.”

Clint made a speculative sound beneath his breath. He was quiet for a moment, his thoughts turning inward and his mouth twisting down into a thin line.

“You said Loki made it to Skyrim.”

“Just so.”

“And the way you describe your culture and the cultures around yours makes it sound like there was a manner of synchronicity between Asgard and your world, and perhaps in the same way, the same as a few of the cultures here.”

“Just so.”

“Did you ever wonder how or why that happened? Maybe that's where you can find an answer to why that could be.”

Keshaara made a humming sound beneath her breath in consideration. As an afterthought, she banished her armor off of her, leaving her back in the clothing that she had worn the night before. Her wrists were still chafed and raw, as were the other connection points of the ropes she had worn, but as she had done before, Keshaara ignored the small twinges of pain, still privately thankful for their presence. Absentmindedly, she rubbed her fingers over the chafed skin, letting the stuttering ache and burn rouse itself. They helped keep her grounded.

“I had considered it. Much of our histories and stories seemed to...overlap, in strange ways. There were moments where I considered that Loki – and perhaps, by extension, the other Aesir of Asgard, were in fact deities, as we regarded them in Tamriel. Much of our history had become so far entwined with legend, that the two were often indistinguishable. Given my own part in history, as Dovahkiin, I am inclined to believe some of it actually happened, as it is very unlikely that I was the only one who ever held such power. But there were moments, and continue to be moments, where the thought of these nine Realms and my own One being parts of the same whole, somehow divided.”

Clint hummed, crossing his arms and sitting across from her.

“But where would that division have occurred? You said that your time and our time passed so much more differently. In that Loki only spent a month away from you, but to you it was nearly four hundred and fifty years. If this split occurred, then shouldn't the timelines match more appropriately? I don't think your world, as you described it, had achieved the technological advancements I would have expected it to have made in those many thousands of years it would have experienced even in the span of a single year of Earth and Asgardian time.”

“That is a matter of discussion for Daedra, but Jyggalag did shed some light onto that particular conundrum.”

“Jigglelags?”

“Jyggalag. Just call him Ol' Jiggly if the name is hard, I guess. He's dead now. Or...well his soul is in me, so I am him?”

Keshaara's voice trailed off as she tried to think of the best way to talk about what she and Jyggalag had done. Clint stared, his eyes focused intently upon her. From anyone else, the scrutiny would have made her feel like she was being judged, and harshly, but she was learning quickly that Clint merely had a very intense gaze. Eyes of the Hawk. Hawkeye – oh _that was the reason wasn't it?!_

She beamed at her discovery, but quickly shook her head to get herself back on task.

“Nevermind, Clint. That's a morass of myth, legend, lies and truth, and something not even I'm entirely certain I understand, and I've been living as a legend for a very long time now.”

He nodded and motioned for her to continue.

“Jyggalag was the one I summoned onto the roof. He was the Daedra of Order. His sphere of influence was destruction, though that was only the result of eons of searching for a way to maintain order in a world of Chaos. It is hard for anything to be out of place if everything is dead. Regardless, he agreed to death and consumption by yours truly on the promise that I bring end to the Cyclic nature of our world to an end. The way he explained it, this has been going for a long while. The Realm of Nirn and Mundus is created by Akatosh, then, in the end, destroyed by his hand as well. Then creation. Then destruction. All things occurred and occurred and occurred again, in the grandest demonstration of futility, until Loki came.”

“Until Loki? Really?”

“According to Jyggalag, yes. This is the first time any has escaped our Planes of Oblivion, the first time anyone from outside the Planes entered it. Loki's presence in Skyrim informed me of the existence of things outside of my own Realm, and in order for Jyggalag to send him back to Asgard, as that was what was demanded by _Order_ , I had to be made into something beyond what I would have ever been made into otherwise – someone who _could_ after all these years, finally stop the Cycles.”

Clint made a noncommittal grunt beneath his breath and crossed his arms.

“The Cycles, however...no one had ever managed to cause this large of a ripple in it. Until Loki, as Jyggalag said.”

“Until Loki, yes.”

Ξ _There were many things that you considered impossible until the Trickster came to you, Dovahkiin._ Ξ

Jyggalag’s voice intruded upon her thoughts, and Keshaara winced.

“Are you okay?”

Barton - _Clint_ reached out to touch her elbow. She shook her head, trying to clear them of the resonance of the once-Daedra’s voice.

“I hear Jyggalag still. I suppose that is just something to get used to.” Keshaara laughed drily. “Like too many other things, I suppose.”

“Are you okay, though?” he asked again.

“…No. But I won’t be, regardless. Suffering is life.”

“It doesn’t have to be.”

The same dry laugh again. Keshaara shook her head. For so much of her life that was not true. Suffering was all she knew, and all that her life had been. The few bright spots of happiness faded over the centuries, and she found herself sinking far too easily into the same patterns of thought that had made her a hermit that first time.

“Keshaara. Life should be more than suffering.”

“Clint, I know it _should_ be. But that is not my lot. I am Dovahkiin. That only means glory for those who bear both Fate and Destiny. My name…before Loki changed it, did I ever tell you what the dragons called me?”

“You said it was Slave.”

“ ‘Sworn Slave Have Courage’. That is not the name of someone meant to have happiness. Courage is not needed for happiness. But to get through suffering? Yes. I have had many years to come to terms with this.”

“And Loki changed your name?”

“He named me a second time. The dragons say it suits me better. ‘Golden Queen of Courage’. It sounds quite a bit better in both languages. But it is a Queenship with no King. And courage, again, to get through suffering.”

Clint grunted, and leaned away from her again. He watched her carefully, and she allowed the scrutiny. Yes, she was sad. Yes, it was likely she would always carry sadness in her, even as she worked to dismantle the system that allowed so much Ξ _chaos_ Ξ – that allowed so much _suffering_ over and over again.

“I’m sorry, Clint. I did not mean to turn things so morose. Was there anything else you wanted to talk about?”

“No, Keshaara it is fine. Talking about something else would probably be good though. Have you seen any good movies?”

“Only the ones Tony puts on for “family time”,” Keshaara said, making prodigious use of the air-quotes Bruce had taught her how to use to indicate sarcasm. “And then a few documentaries. I like the ocean ones a lot.”

“Right. Come on then. Let’s go watch a movie.”

Clint stood first, and extended a hand down to Keshaara. With a small smile, she took his hand and stood with his help.

* * *

“Clint, I don’t understand,” Keshaara said around a mouthful of popcorn. “How are the sharks in the tornado?”

“Shhh, just watch the movie,” Clint said, reaching for her bowl of popcorn.

They were sitting on the couch together, and on the table in front of them, badly photoshopped DVD covers covering everything from _Sharktopus_ to the currently-watched _Sharknado._

“But…those are deep water sharks, Clint. I saw in one of my shows on the Netflix that that shark is called a frill shark and I don’t think it would be caught in a water spout like that.”

“Kesh, this is a SyFy show. They don’t make sense. After this we’ll watch one about a giant crocodile fighting sharktopus and maybe then you’ll understand.”

James walked into the room and Keshaara was quick to motion him over to sit with her and Clint, scooting closer to Clint and patting the couch next to her. James smiled and sat with her, reaching for the popcorn as well. Keshaara gave James a face-splitting smile and bumped her shoulder against his. James didn't ask any clarification questions, just settled in and started watching the movie with both of them.

“I don’t know, Clint…Woah! Is that a _chainsaw_?!” Keshaara exclaimed, excitedly jumping up just far enough to upend the bowl of popcorn.

“Yep.”

“Bad ** _ass,_** ” James and Keshaara murmured in unison.

“There we go.”

"I'm going to get more popcorn," Clint said with a laugh.

On the couch, Keshaara and James had started cheering for the chainsaw-wielding, shirtless man with the bad shark puns, laughing all the while.

 


	21. Suffocate

The movies went on until late in the night and early the next morning. Keshaara’s eyes burned and she was moderately certain that her blood was mostly made of salted popcorn butter. But the movies were too good, too bad, too much to ignore and want to stop. She wanted to see more movies, but they were all starting to bleed together. She didn’t know if _this_ Sharktopus was the same as the _first_ one.

There were soft snores coming from Barton, and James was leaning up against her, his head on her shoulder, barely awake, but still idly reaching for the popcorn bowl at intermittent times. It was a comfortable sort of camaraderie, a gentle connection that made her begin to feel the stirrings of _home_ again, even if everything around her was unlike anything else she had ever seen.

The sensation was a hard one to describe.

She had a man on her right whose metal arm was only barely just beginning to warm to the touch, who curled against her as if he was used to that sort of physical contact. He was broken up inside but he still trusted her, of all people. For whatever reason, the one decided he liked her. Even without knowing everything - even with being told her history, and knowing there was still more, he felt comfortable enough to come near her, to be comforted by her presence. It touched a deep part of her that she had thought would be long buried in the years since she had something approximating actual consistency.

So when she felt the air around her shift, lurch, then still, her heart went cold.

As carefully as she could, she extricated herself from her comfortable position on the couch. Keshaara had had centuries to learn her lesson, but even with a new name burning in her heart, she still could convince herself that she could find a home for herself.

James shifted to let her up, watching her carefully. She knew he could see that she was distressed, but placatingly, she made a dismissive gesture with both of her hands, palms down, urging him to sit, stay where he was. Be happy, watch the movie, eat the popcorn, but please, please, _please_ , don’t come investigate whatever is wrong.

Because she could feel the air again, shifting around her, twisting and warping in the way that told her senses that Daedra were afoot. Jyggalag had given the same sensation, but she had been expecting him, and Akatosh, well…Akatosh as himself and as Alduin had always evoked a different reaction. But this made her think of things years ago, stumbling through the belly of Markarth, sick and beaten and bloody, standing before a statue and invoking a Daedra to her will.

She shuddered as she walked down the hallway to her room, not wanting to go into any manner of battle unprepared. Keshaara had fallen out of the habit of carrying all of her clothing with her in her time here. It was a bad habit. It left her unprepared, underprepared, but the people here did not walk around in full armor like they did back in Tamriel, or on Asgard. Nor did they seem to care to prepare for battles unknown.

Attacks could come at any time, but the general masses relied on outside forces to save them. When such a task fell to Keshaara, as it did now, she regretted her relaxation. She regretted many things in her life, so many of them, and with a heavy heart, she added another to the list. She regretted this.

“Heeeello, Dovahkiin. It has been a while, hasn't it?”

Looking up sharply at the voice, Keshaara's introspection ended. Sheograth was standing in the corridor leading to her room, rubbing his thumb and forefinger of his left hand across the collar of his tunic. Something deep in her heart ached at the familiar clothing. The clothing from home, Divines, from _home_. She shook it away.

“Sheograth. Wasn't expecting you,” she said, figuring honesty in the face of chaos and terror wasn't a bad place to start.

Her lack of a weapon or armor no longer bothered her to the extent it could have. There was nothing but her wits when it came to Sheograth. His realm was madness and chaos and all things inane, and no manner of armor or armament could hope to defend against him. Not really. And Keshaara really did not want to lose what would be her last Skyforge-steel axe to Sheograth's tricks.

“Of course not. No one was. That's why I'm here. Akatosh did not expect me. Never does. Not in all the Cycles. I'm the constant abberation. Then, now, there's you.”

She inclined her head in a graceful half-bow.

“I feel as if that's rather my life's lot. 'And then there was you' seems an apt description of too much of me, I feel. Cycle or no.”

Sheograth chuckled, and the sound was more like the screech of a waiting predator's maw than anything else. Daedra or Divine, his kind were not kind in the real world. She knew that, but...well, she saw no wabbajack. Saw no indication that at least, just yet, Sheograth was planning something any more than just crossing time and space and Oblivion to meet with her.

“It is, hmm, a fair point, Dovahkiin.”

The old name, the old term, regardless of who was saying it still made a sense of pride and belonging well up in her. She may bear a different name now, but nothing truly had changed. She was Dovahkiin. She was more than that.

“Thank you. Would you care to come into my room, Sheograth-Daedra? It would be more private than out here,” Keshaara asked carefully.

Truthfully, she did not want anyone to come by and see Sheograth. Jyggalag was a problem on his own, for his sphere all too often was one of destruction and death in the seeking of _Order_.

(Oh, she bit down on the tide of Order in her throat. This was still too much.)

But Sheograth could not be allowed near James. Or Dr. Banner. Or Clint. None of them handled their own minds well enough on their own – with good reason and appropriate cause. Sheograth could drive even the most practical person insane, and she did not need him near ones already delicate in mind and self.

“Privacy is good, Dovahkiin. We have…much to talk of.”

Keshaara swallowed the hard lump in her throat, and motioned for Sheograth to follow her into her rooms. The door clicked shut behind them both and even with no further deities to pray to, and no hope that she had a chance to get out of this without something…bad happening to her.

* * *

She felt the tears on her face. They didn’t stop. They didn’t because they couldn’t. Back in the Tower, far, far, _far_ away from where she was now, placed reverently on the wall, beneath drawings done in a steady hand despite the tremble of her heart, were the grave gifts of her children, her husband, her friends…and Loki’s cloak.

Sheograth had made a trade. A good one, but the price was still high.

The price was high but she was willing to pay it. She was would pay and pay and pay again and _that_ was why she was so far away from the Avenger’s Tower, in a seedy town in its seediest underground bar surrounded by drugs and alcohol and half-naked writhing bodies. Sheograth had his hands on her throat, holding her steady as she drank whatever bottle of alcohol he had handed her previously down.

There was a burn in her throat, down her chest, in her gut, and it was the price.

For their gifts, Sheograth had her consume the souls of his companions. Aedra and Daedra alike, it did not matter. Akatosh would come for them, but Sheograth was there first. For each of her children, for her husband, for her friends, there was a price. She paid it gladly, but in the order that suited her. Handling Jyggalag had meant succumbing to Order beneath another’s heel.

She had taken Farhan’s knife from Akatosh, and then paid to Jyggalag.

She took Si’s golden comb, Thenta’s small-shield, Mehar’s lucky bear-claw, Yitte’s silver bangle, Vanka's bow, Bou's necklace, Niye's beading loom, Heshaa's insense, Paowe's favorite pelt, Kanka's poisoned dagger, Lelela's ebony-woven purse...her children's grave gifts, all. These baubles, she took gladly, keeping them from Alduin's slow consumption

And then took Hircine, Malacath, Mehrunes Dagon, Mephala, Nocturnal, Peryite, Vaermina, Boethiah, Arkay, Stendarr, Zenithar for the ability to have her children with her again. Her gut roiled, burned, her breath sharpened into breathy pants. She was _Keshaara_ her name was _Keshaara._

Even if Sheograth held her down and indulged her in madness so sweet it was payment for his own soul, it was still her job to remember who she was. Her blood was burning, her soul was aflame, and she was drowning in the sensations, in the voices, in the –

“Just let go, Keshaara,” Sheograth whispered in her ear, his fingers kneading her throat.

She had taken Farkas’s marriage fur, draped it over her bed, and in exchange, took Clavicus Vile.

“Let go.”

She clung to herself, not wanting to be swept away on the tides rising in her. She was drowning with the strength of divinity and profanity in her lungs and it was _too much_ for a simple Nord.

“You are not Nord. You are Dovahkiin. Dovah. Not Nord. You are more And you will be more again.”

For Aela’s pot of paint, now blackened and dried and cracked by time, she took the one called Kyne.

For her Companions bold and brave, for her Thieves, for her Assassins, for the Mages of Winterhold and the lineage of her blood, she took Hermaeus Mora, and gained the gifts of the Order themselves.

She was – she needed so much more. The pinch of a needle in her arm went unnoticed. Ice flooded her veins, but fire came again soon after. Her mind exploded into a cacophony of _everything_ and _noneness_ all at once and she howled. The power of ages got caught in her throat, however, and her scream cut off into a soundless whine.

The music thumped around her, pulsing in time with her heart’s beat. She needed more, needed so much more than what had already set her bones to aching because –

Sheograth shushed her again, wrapping her in delightful madness, letting her muffle herself with insanity for however long it took

For Loki’s cloak, she had taken Sanguine. And she had taken Sanguine last because…because it was right. Loki had been her deep, dark desire, and for wanting him, she was willing and capable of completely destroying her entire realm. She was going to consume – she _had_ consumed the Gods into herself. She had taken divinity into her blood, and was willing to become the cairn for everything that had been and could be of her people.

Keshaara was being _selfish_ by claiming his grave-gift. She was taking something that some would argue that she had no right to have. She was taking it because her heart ached and she wanted to feel something – _anything_ – that soothed the ragged edges of her heart.

A sob bubbled up in her chest, and Sheograth pet her hair.

“Hush, pet,” he said in a voice that was far from his own. “Hush, _Kesh_.”

She shuddered, closing her eyes.

“Let me blindfold you. Let me take care of you.”

She keened Loki’s name, obligingly tilting her head back against the hands that stroked the back of her neck. A strangled moan came from…her paramour. She felt silk loop over her eyes, felt the knot being tied, felt everything around her wait breathless and anticipating for his next touch.

Keshaara did not care who it was that was touching her. It was not Sheograth. It could not be Loki. But she was madness inside and out, and the things that burned her breath and scorched the wreckage of her soul all screamed for _him_. She wanted so much. She wanted so much and so much more again that anything, _anything at all_ was preferable to having nothing. Whoever it was who was tracing shaking fingers down her throat – it didn’t _matter_.

“Let go,” Sheograth’s voice echoed in her head.

She had taken his soul into her, like all the others. The one touching her was not Sheograth. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter, it didn’t matter, none of it mattered and everything was madness. It was madness and comfort in that. If Keshaara wanted to believe, in her madness, that it was Loki whispering words of devotion against her neck, she would. It soothed.

* * *

“You must give that cloak to me, Laufeyson. Junsekrah. However you wish to be called.”

His eyes were rimmed in red already as he looked down at the collection of old fragments of Her life. He didn’t want to touch. He wanted to touch. He wanted to run his fingers along them all and hold them close then press them into Her hands with a dozen whispered apologies. She deserved better than this. She did, Norns, she _did._

“Why are you doing this?” he hissed, staring up at the Daedra who had, against all odds, found him.

“She needs it. She needs their power, she needs to know what is at stake.”

“She’s suffered _enough_ ,” he snapped. He could feel her sadness still. Her blood was still in his, and their connection made his teeth ache anew.

“Has she really? Then perhaps you should tell her…”

“I _can’t_.”

“Won’t, at any rate.”

This Daedra did not understand, could not begin to understand, what it meant for him to be doing this. He needed to make certain what the Chitauri and Others had wanted to make to come to pass, and in order to do so, he needed to be where he was, doing what he was doing. Rage made his jaw clench. He was doing this _for_ her, he was doing the best he could and there was so much more to do still.

And now this Daedra had found him and was asking after his cloak to present Her.

“You’re going to hurt her with this. You’re _trying_ to hurt her.”

“No more than you already have. You’ve scarred her heart, you know. Deeply. She yearns for you in such a way that we can feel it, even back -”

“I don’t need to hear it. I know. I feel it.”

“And you let her suffer? My my, such cruelty. Perhaps you should truly be counted Prince to her Champion.”

His heart thumped.

He remembered her Princes before, remembered the one called Mora. Remembered how casually she brushed off his concern. Remembered how she counted her treatment at the one who called her Champion.

“It isn’t like that,” he said, his voice…small.

“Oh, no, for a certainty not. She rather feels much more for you than she ever did my Brother. I wonder if that means it hurts her more, in the end? How much do you think a scarred heart can feel before the scars cover it all, and it is held still?”

The Daedra mused mostly to himself, but watched Him carefully, nonetheless.

“It should not matter to you, either way. She is wounded, no matter your action. Or...inaction, as it is.”

He looked away, unable to meet the two-tone eyes of the Daedra surveying him.

“Give me the cloak.”

“I...” He faltered, looking for the words.

“If she is to be strong enough to be freed of what has plagued us for centuries, then she will need to be strong enough to handle this. She needs the powers of the ones I have brought to stand against Akatosh. I will give nothing freely. I will take the cloak, or I will keep the power.”

The Daedra did not flinch, but He did.

“You're holding her success over me?”

“The choices of her life have led her here. She chose you and set _this_ into motion. Yes. The choice lies with you. What will you do?”

For a long while, He was silent. This wasn't what he had wanted.

“I want to see her.”

The Daedra laughed, and it was the sound of ice crushing the roof of a house.

“She won't know you.”

He closed his eyes. Tears scalded His cheeks.

“I know. Take the cloak.”

“Come with me.”

He went. He watched. And when it was too much to see her sobbing, burning from the inside out with a power she did not know what to do with, he took her into his arms again. With her eyes covered, he could be himself once more, and as they moved together, at the center of a mad, drug-fueled haze, bodies sliding against each other, his name on her lips again, he steeled his heart against pushing her blindfold away and showing her that he was still alive, he was still here. She sobbed his name uncaringly, arching into his every touch with a whispered prayer to the one she thought dead.

It was madness, yes.

But he could suffocate in madness for a while longer.


	22. Rise

The world around her shuddered, and he was the only thing holding her steady amidst it all. This was worse than the pitch and roll of earthquakes, worse than the sightlessness and disorientation of snowblindness, worse than poison in her system and dizziness from the little death upon her. Time truly had lost meaning. Keshaara had no idea how long she had languished in this place, surrounded by drugs and alcohol, drowning in pleasures unrelenting.

But through it all, he was there.

Her vampire. It could be no one else but him. No one else but him because it could not _be_ anyone else. Madness dragged at her, throwing all manner of idea into her mind, never letting her rest, never letting her settle. She was helpless to do anything other than gasp and writhe beneath the hands of the vampire.

Sensations overwhelmed and she felt tears hit her skin with enough intensity to burn her skin, it felt.

Keshaara made a confused sound, breaking through some of the deep layers of madness that had been suffocating her. Those weren't her tears. She had run out of tears hours...days, ago. This sorrow was not her own.

“Come back, please,” she heard, whispered through the air, and it was her thought to one she had lost, but still not her voice.

She pushed against the dogged pull of insanity and sorrow, trying to follow the words and the whispers that called to her. She knew the voice. She knew the voice and the one it belonged to and even if Sovengarde never had him, it could have had an echo of him at one point, it could have been anything, but the tantalizing thought, the hope and wish that it could be him had her battling upwards towards consciousness.

“Come on, come on, you can't go like this.”

It was hard work to remove herself from the profane powers that burned in her chest. She was as close to godhood as a mortal could be, a vessel with too many souls, and power leaking out around the edges. There was so much within her now that it hardly mattered that _she_ existed, because there were others within her now. Their souls and hers warred for awareness, and even as she heard the pained whispers of one who wanted her safe and living, she heard the whispers of the Aedra and Daedra both.

They wanted. They had desires and needs and drives. They were powerful, constant forces of her world. They were many and she was only the one. Her strength failed in the faces of them gathered within her.

“Come back.”

But she could fight – she had always fought. She fought and tried to fight. But every time she fought, every time she tried to fight, every fight she made took just a little bit more of her fight out of her. It was so hard, and she tried so hard but it wasn't working. It wasn't. There was a last barrier, a last one layer and she could do nothing to break through it. No matter how she forced herself, she couldn't.

“You were always right. I’m lost. Come back to me.”

She was too weak.

That was not surprising. She had always been weak. Weak and frail. Nord in a world of dragons and Daedra and Aedra. Only given enough power to barely scrape by, barely live, barely survive. It was hardly ever enough. She scraped and clawed for every chance to live, to thrive, and only ever found enough in herself to get further than that. This moment was no different.

Keshaara just had nothing more to her.

Nothing more to give.

No more fight against the tides of power.

She was not strong enough.

There was too much pressure within her, too much of everything else and not of her. She was going to be swept away, dragged under, and it was all because there just wasn't _enough_ of her.

“ _No, no, no, no, no, come back **please**_. Without you, I am _nothing_.”

Fangs breached skin, and it was like a pressure valve suddenly blowing, and she must have howled, because he flinched atop of her, pulling away as if he had been burned.

Her own fangs, long ignored, longer forgotten, flashed out, and she pinned him to the cold floor, covering his somehow colder body with hers, which burned like the fires of the long-dormant Skyforge. She bit him, drinking the power he had taken from her back into herself, drowning herself in blood that tasted of cold winters forgotten in years of sorrow, and juniper. Something nagged at her senses, a memory struggled against the tides of divinity, but then his cries turned to gasps of pleasure.

Keshaara drank him into her, filling voids and gaps in her _self_ to his detriment, until he pulled her away from his neck just long enough to reciprocate her bite, savagely tearing into her throat with a sobbed prayer.

Need dripped in his voice, and Sanguine and Molag Bal were all to happy to rise to the occasion.

He needed her blood.

She needed blood.

They needed each other, more than either could fully comprehend after a month-long bender, and the profane desires that had once lead them to one another were coming to a momentous head. There was to be no turning back from this, no way to undo the power in their blood, the way the power exchanged and flowed between the two of them.

They fucked and they fed and it was better, in that moment, than it had been in all the moments before.

Pleasure in blood and body both overwhelmed, and madness roared louder than any Thu'um, and Keshaara had no words for what she was feeling. Bliss was not near enough to explaining the sensation of absolute completion that she felt in her heart every time she heard his muffled voice grunt her name into her neck as he thrust raggedly into her. Not near close enough to illuminate the sublimity of feeling that overwhelmed as his hands clawed down her sides and he purred obscenities into her blood.

His blood, her blood – there soon ceased being a distinction between the two. Her power and his, and the power of the Divines and Profanes filtered throughout. Part of her, a deep forgotten thing, wondered idly if sharing such power with a vampire was a good thing or not, but truly, what other choice did she have? He had given her the only way out of the pressure building in her chest and no matter how hard she tried, it was the only way.

“Need you, _only you,”_ she panted, arching against him, grinding hard against his cock.

He keened, long and loud, grabbing her by the hips and slamming himself harder into her. Words had to be bitten back behind florid cursing and desperate attempts to communicate without communicating. He was thrown on the tides as hard as she was, but it was Keshaara that struggled to freedom before he did. He could tell in the way her body stilled and her breath suddenly caught. He could taste the change in her blood, the way it burned his mouth, and he was quick to pull away.

Keshaara had always been a woman of immense power, whether she knew it fully or not. And now, it was nearly too much. She had her fangs buried deep in his neck still, draining blood and power from him with every long pull

As fast as he could manage, he tore her mouth from his neck, and healed the bite wounds that seeped blood from his body. She couldn't be coherent and have his blood. She just couldn't. He couldn't allow it. Not yet. Not now.

The echoing of a thousand voices thundered in his ears and he had to shake them all away so he could look down at her. Look down at her and remember why, remember why he had to do things like this, remember why he was trying any of this. He wanted her to find happiness and satisfaction, but when he felt her in pain, when he felt their bond vibrate with her need, he couldn't help himself. She had needed him. She needed him still, but...she couldn't know. Not yet.

Not now.

He just had to watch as she rode out her pleasure, swearing devotions to a man she thought was a stranger. His heart felt like it was being torn into a thousand pieces, even as it rejoiced in seeing her wracked with pleasure and orgasmic joy. It was still her, and it was still him, and it was still _them_ together, but she didn't know that and he couldn't let her know that because it would jeopardize too many things.

So instead, he just looked at her, staring down at this near-goddess beneath him, writhing as aftershocks rattled her. He couldn't help the way he stared, couldn't help the adoration that bloomed in his chest, couldn't help the words that started bubbling up in the back of his throat, but he _could_ help the snap of his hips against hers, the ragged way he thrust into her to quiet the pounding in his chest, the sharp burn of need that shook him to the core before it exploded.

His release stole the breath out of his lungs and he had to gasp for breath, even as Keshaara beneath him rolled her body up to press her breasts to his chest.

“Breathe, vamp. You're alright,” she said, her voice raw from overexertion.

His heart gave an uneven beat in his chest. For a long moment he had felt the same sort of madness she still held behind her teeth, and still, she sought to comfort him first. She hadn’t even pushed the blindfold up over her eyes yet, and she was still reaching for him, magic dancing around her fingertips. He shivered, letting his own magic curl across his skin before he reached to push her blindfold away. Wearing the skin of another, he stared down at her, and she grinned at him.

His heart stuttered in his chest.

“You are too kind, my pet,” he gasped back.

Gently, she reached up to smooth his long hair out of his eyes, before she kissed him softly. He responded with a heartbroken groan into her mouth, and misunderstanding the purpose behind it, she whispered an apology against his lips before her hands were alight with gold light, and let her magic flow over him. The small cuts, the dangerously large bruises, the seeping wounds, all of them faded at her touch, whisked away.

He sagged, pressing a kiss to her hair, shivering as her magic rolled over him.

He had missed this. Missed her magic against his skin, the way it sparked and flickered at the edges of his vision, the way it made him feel brighter and more alive just by proximity. He missed the closeness, the way her leg slid up his hip to pull him back down against her, the way her back arched to press her breasts to his chest, the soft way she sighed when he pressed his lips to her temple in a chaste kiss. He missed her. He missed her, and this, and them. He missed it with an ache so fierce in his chest that it made everything else he planned and plotted seem so very inconsequential.

But the world would come crashing down if he stayed with her to the exclusion of all else. If he failed, if he faltered, if he succumbed to his own selfishness _again_ , everything would be for naught. He had to steel himself, he had to push on…and that meant pushing away from her again.

He found strength he did not know he still possessed to push himself up off of her.

(Weakness, when he slowly leaned back down leave a lingering kiss on her lips, when he opened his mouth to taste her tongue.)

He tried to push away, tried to leave her behind, to move from her intoxicating heat, but it was weakness that lead him to run his fingers reverently down her sides, to sigh reverential words of praise against the flesh of her collarbone, to ache to pull her close once again. He was a weak man, he knew this. He had always been weak. He had always, _always_ , been weak, but Keshaara had given him strength to do what was good and just. He was doing that now, by letting her suffer. But he was weak enough to be selfish again and try and kiss her once again. He missed her.

“Vamp, I do not much wish for you to stop, but…”

He withdrew from her quickly at that, nearly scrambling backwards in his haste to get away.

“Of course, of course pet. Couldn’t imagine a better time for it,” he said quickly, swallowing the words in his throat to keep things civil.

Keshaara shook her head, sitting up slowly. Blood oozed from the bite wounds, and he had to grab at his own hands to keep from lunging for her again. Her blood shimmered with power, and her eyes were glowing with arcane might. He ached for her in a way that still surprised him, even after all this time. But she looked so _beautiful_ , and he couldn’t believe that she was still _here_ with him.

He went to collect their clothing, finding it in pieces from where she had torn it from his skin. The seams were ruined. It was not, truly a problem – he could retreat to the pocket dimension and clothe himself anew. But not until she was gone, lest she hear his magic. So he had to wait, standing naked, watching, entranced as Keshaara rose to her own feet. She was as close to the divine as anyone could hope to be, and in unmitigated glory, she took his breath away.

He could only stare, trying to burn the vision of her into his memory. This was his reason for breathing, moving, living. His reason for everything.

Keshaara grinned at him, and with a soft glow of light that brightened into a flash, dressed herself. Clothes wrapped around her, modern human clothes, leather and silk in equal measure. Her colors were unchanged, he noticed with a sharp pan g of hurt. Orange and charcoal black and grey.

“Thank you, vamp. Very much,” she purred.

She advanced on him, and when she reached for him, he folded himself into her arms. Keshaara felt so strong, and held him so tenderly that he bit his cheek until he tasted blood to keep from spilling his secret to her. Gently, she kissed him, running her fingers through his hair. He trembled. She had recovered so quickly from the edge of insanity, and was already prepared to move on.

“I’m tired, and I feel that we’re far from home. Do you trust me?”

 _More than myself_ \- “Yes.”

His world tipped and spun, and he heard the roaring of dragons in the air around them. The world trickled back into existence, and he felt clothing wrap about his body.

“Wouldn’t want you to be naked on your walk home, mine vamp,” she said with broad grin.

“This is…your room, my pet?” he said, his voice sticking in the back of his throat. The room was sumptuous for mortal tastes, but what he had seen, and what had his attention, was the wall of framed objects. Age showed on all but one of the objects – and what Sheograth had told to him made so much more sense.

Grave-gifts all. And at the end of the line, his cloak. Guarded behind glass, folded meticulously, and beneath it…the drawing he had done of both of them that long time ago. For her, it had been centuries, and for him, far less than that. But it was there, a memento and mockery of what could be, a reminder of what he had to lose if this did not go well. She mourned him already.

He could only hope that she would not have to mourn him truthfully, that one day he could return to her in glory and wipe all this sorrow from her. Time was running out. He had to work faster and harder.

Leaving her was not easy, it never was. But this was pain that he could end with a simple wave of his hand and a few words. The answer was so easy and she was _right there_. All he had to do was open his mouth and tell her, and that would be it.

But he bit his lip, thanked her for the clothes, and did his best to leave the Avenger’s Tower as soon as he possibly could. Keshaara walked him to the front door of the Tower, deftly avoiding any of the other Avengers who could have been in at the time. She did nothing so crass as to kiss him goodbye, merely opened the door and bobbed her head as a farewell before turning back inside. He watched her leave, watched the door shut between them, watched her walk away on steady feet.

His world dimmed and lost its luster without her by him.

He covered his mouth to keep traitorous words from spilling out of him, to keep from calling her back to his side. Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes, and he shook them away. There was no time for that. He had work to do.

_Quite right. Quite right, you are._

He also had to ignore the whispers of her pantheon in the back of his mind now. He was certain they would fade with time.

There was only so much more time left. He had to work fast.


	23. Chase

Keshaara watched her vampire leave from a different window. In the moment, she could not place the odd emotion that bloomed in her chest as she stared at where he stood. He watched the door that she had led him through, unmoving for a long minute. The two of them watched the other, neither knowing what the other thought.

How could they?

Each kept their secrets close to their heart.

Neither were willing to speak their truths to the other. Not yet. Keshaara could not tell the vampire what she was. Who she was. Anything like that would come too close to endangering him more than sharing the arcane might that burned in her chest had. She knew that Alduin was coming. She knew it, felt it in her bones. No one could be near when Alduin came for her.

As before, when she faced the First of Creation…she would be alone.

She turned away from the window. This was not the time for those sorts of thoughts. She had a job to do, a final mission. Profanity and divinity burned her blood and if she even thought she was starting to slip, she could feel them _all_ begin to rise like bile in the back of her throat. Keshaara swallowed them all back down, shoving them deep into her gut.

They would fester there until she fought Alduin, growing like a cancer in her stomach until she could not hold them in anymore.

She had always been the gravesite for creatures beyond a mortal’s comprehension. It just so happened that now, she was rotting with the bones and souls she carried in her. They were carving, slowly carving, anything in her that was _her_ out. There would be nothing left by the end.

But she could stomach that.

Because it would be the **end**.

The knowledge that her death was coming for her on blackened wings, and win or lose, she herself was going to die as well…did not disturb her any longer. She knew the price of what she had been given, and the price for what she had taken. It was high. It was always high. But someone had to pay and she was the very last person in a lineage of heroes who could pay the debt demanded of this.

She had had enough of living.

She had the grave gifts of all of the ones she had loved. There would be no grave for her. The universe that birthed her would consume her, in the shape of a black dragon. Either from without, or within.

Keshaara took a deep breath, tamping down any rising panic she felt. It served her no good. She had not known what Sheograth had been offering, but she had known it would be nothing more than a trap. That was his very nature. Madness and chaos and that was _fine_ because she had lived long enough.

Her heart had been hurt enough.

Wandering through the Tower that Tony had been so kind as to let her stay when she bullied her way into the Avengers’ lives, Keshaara took stock of everything that had happened in her lifetime. She had never really belonged much anywhere, had she?

Not in Morrowind with her adopted family who loved her so, because her destiny had been Skyrim.

Not in Skyrim with her destiny and dragons, because her nature was to be alone with both of those things.

Not in Tamriel, because her heart had been in Asgard.

Not in Asgard, because the people there could not understand her.

Not in Asgard, because her heart had been carved out of her again.

Not in Midgard, not on earth because her destiny was coming for her again and she had nowhere else to turn.

Being taken from somewhere you didn’t belong wasn’t punishment.

It was a blessing.

She belonged nowhere, so being taken could not possibly be that bad. Not really.

She could believe that, sure. For just long enough to die. Keshaara would deny the pang in her heart at the thought, for however long she needed to. It did not stop the visions that danced across the back of her eyelids every time she dared close her eyes to gather her thoughts.

* * *

She pulled her teeth across the beautiful, long column of his throat. Not enough to bruise or scrape, despite the sharpness of her fangs, but with enough force to needle a long whine from his mouth.

He was seated in a chair carved from sumptuous ebony. Hands tied behind his head, looped around a specially-carved burl of the wood, and his legs were tied similarly to the wide-spread legs of the chair. Stark naked, back arched and head thrown back, he had no way to deny any of her actions, save for the word that he held carefully in the back of his throat. He didn’t want her to stop, he never wanted her to stop. Not for a single moment, not ever, but…he could. There was control and submission, yes. There was a decadence to this, and that he could revel in it as much as she.

She, by contrast, was unbound and unfettered, clothed and dominant in that moment. The chair had no arms, for which they were both grateful, as it let her straddle him as she worked.

For the moment, she was merely reveling in the slow drag of her teeth down his neck. His blood thundered to her senses. She was _vampire_ , avatar of Molag Bal and Sanguine both. She wanted to sink her teeth into his flesh up to her gums and drink his entire body dry, but she held back. She teetered on the precipice of madness and he along with her.

Her fangs kissed his skin with just barely enough pressure to breach, and he hissed sharply in surprise. She pulled away, not ready yet to slake her thirst for him. Not when she could push them both so much higher.

She rocked her hips against his cock, and he thrashed, chocking on her name. Her clothing was so soft and slick against his overheated skin, and mimicked the flesh he desperately wanted to plunge into. He groaned into her neck when she pressed herself tight to him. He ached for her, he wanted nothing more than to sink into her depths as her fangs sank into his neck. He wanted to beg for it, he wanted to howl her name and fall on her mercy.

But he didn’t.

He luxuriated in the madness with her. The pleasure was indescribable. The thin line between pleasure and insanity and _everything else_ about them was enough to make anyone drunk on it all.

* * *

She shook her head, forcing the distracting thoughts out of her mind. She didn’t have time for this, she needed to remain in control. At all times, in control. If she lost control, if she succumbed to the yawning depths within her, she would never come back. This was worse than the Tesseract, worse than that fucking Infinity within her, because it was not a singular entity any more. It was not a growing, gnawing, seething thing. It was growing, gnawing, seething, _thing **s**_.

They roiled in her gut, seeking purchase within her, clawing at her bones to try and tear her apart from the inside out.

Keshaara took a deep, stabilizing breath. And then another, for good measure.

It barely quieted the maelstrom inside of her. She could still hear them screaming in her ears, calling for insanity and blood and pleasure and knowledge and a thousand thousand other things that no one person could ever hope to satisfy, even in an infinite lifetime.

And she did not have that.

Not anymore.

“Miss Keshaara, you are returned to the Tower.”

Startled, she flinched from the sound before remembering who it belonged to.

“Yes, Jarvis. I am here. I am sorry for my absence. How…long was I gone?”

The computer was silent for a long moment, thinking over something. Keshaara was still learning more about the machinery and how they worked, but it seemed as if the computer was thinking over long.

“Over a month. Mister Barnes went out to find you. Captain Rogers left a week after he did to find you both.”

Her blood ran cold.

“What? How long has James been gone?”

Panic touched her and the cacophony in her mind rose to a fever pitch. James was in trouble and she had to save him. She had to. Whatever had happened to him, she needed to fix. He had come to find her and while he had never found her, she needed to return the favor now. He was important to her and she was not going to allow anyone or anything to hurt him.

Not ever. Not as long as she could stop whatever was happening.

“About two and a half weeks.”

She sucked in air sharply between her teeth. With that much of a head start he could be anywhere, shenanigans notwithstanding. Travel in this world was less magically enhanced than it had been on Asgard, but they had planes and cars here. A person could be moved all across the globe within hours. A far cry from instantaneous travel like Lo-… _others_ could do. She could transport herself about now too, now that she thought about it. It wasn’t hard. She had brought the vampire and herself back to the Tower.

Part of her wondered if this sort of magic could take her to Loki’s side.

Parts of her whispered _yes of course_.

A very small part told her no.

She had to listen to that small part. For the good of everything, to avoid ripping the world to pieces and tearing down what had been built by others, she had to listen to the smallest remaining part of herself.

Keshaara grit her teeth against the injustice of it all. She had to focus on James for now. She _had_ to find James. He was her **friend** and that meant something to the once-Dovahkiin, now…whatever it was that she was.

“Do you know where…he started?”

“No. He went to track you down. Thought he could do it. Heard rumblings of something out there that could have been you. He did not give much information. Captain Rogers followed him out a few days later when Mr. Barnes did not answer his phone.”

“Do you know where Captain Rogers is, then?”

There was a moment as Jarvis thought. Keshaara let the silence drag on for as long as was needed, taking careful measures to count her every breath. Even, slow breaths helped her center herself. She had to be calm. It helped the rising madness if she remained calm.

“Yes. I can trace his phone.”

“Where is he?”

“…I will send the information to your phone.”

“Thank you, Jarvis.”

“Shall I inform the other Avengers that you are going to be leaving again, Miss Keshaara?”

“Do what you think is right, Jarvis. I’m only going to grab my things. Then I’ll be rendezvousing with Captain Rogers.”

It was easy, so easy, to slide between dimensions now. She understood the trick of it. Between one moment and the next, she _moved_ from where she had been, to her room. The grave gifts of those she had loved and taken for her own adorned her wall, and carefully, Keshaara brushed her fingers over every one of them. A moment of reverence for those who had gone before her. She would be joining them soon, she felt.

But not so soon that she would not have the time to do this for James. She was going to find him and bring him home safe. Wherever it was that he decided his home was, she would take him there.

Keshaara placed her well-worn and ages-old travelling pack in place on her belt. It was heavy with armor and weapons both, not that she felt the weight much anymore. The feeling, however slight, was still a calming, centering one. The weight settled her, lessened the load on her soul, made it easier to breathe.

She looked down at her phone, where Jarvis helpfully had given her the location of Captain Rogers. Steve. However she was meant to call him.

She had no idea where it was in relation to where she was, but the trick of teleportation was easy enough to expand outwards into places she did not know well. The world tipped again, twisting out of her sight, and Keshaara went out.

To _hunt_.

* * *

For all his bravado and words, now that he was alone again, far from Her, far from her touch and her body pressed to his, he felt fear.

He had brushed up against the weight she carried in her now, the price that had been paid by someone who had paid too many debts for too many people for far too long and he was afraid. There was so much work to be undone on his end, so many great things that he had put into motion once upon a long time ago that he now had to work quickly to undo before all fell to pieces against him, but…he still ached to be with Her. To hold Her hand, to tell Her that he was going to be there for Her, even if he couldn’t protect Her from whatever it was that was coming.

_∞Now isn’t that sweet_ _∞_

It did not help that this voice had not left him.

∞ _Part of the deal, boy. I’ll leave in due time. If there’s enough of that left._ _∞_

He didn’t need this reminder. Didn’t need to feel even this small sliver of what She must be feeling because all of it made him ache to run to Her side.

And he couldn’t.

∞ _Won’t, at any rate._ _∞_

He **couldn’t**.

∞ _You are running out of time_.∞


	24. Rain

Keshaara melted into existence – (so that's what it felt like on the other end of sudden ominous appearances as [D]Aedra) – in a seedy bar somewhere far from the Tower. She did not know _where_ she was, only that Captain Rogers was also here. Her belt was heavy with her armor and weaponry, but she chose to appear in the clothing of the earthborn. Black leather jacket, burnt orange tank, charcoal grey pants, heavy boots. Not armor, not as she was used to, but it sent a message as clear as the noontime sun being ignored outside the bar:

Do not approach, dangerous.

She had spent some of her time reading up on biology in her time on earth. It was a science that had been lost inTamriel, never fully understood except in the most basic of senses. Bright colors meant danger, poison, Do Not Touch Me.

Keshaara was dangerous, and she felt the deep reverberating _thrummm_ in her bones as she looked for Captain Rogers. He was here, somewhere. She would find him and then she would drag him to wherever it was that James had been taken and then she would _hurt_ the people who had taken James away.

Her teeth ached at the thought.

She shook her head and tried to ignore the hunger that gripped her stomach. Keshaara knew she was walking a razor's edge of madness and sanity, and only part of that was because of Sheograth's incessant giggling in her ear. She would have been more concerned if she _didn't_ hear Sheograth laughing at her in the background of her mind. The only time that Daedra was quiet was when he was planning something.

Captain Rogers was easy to find. There was only so much space in the bar for one such as him to be hiding – not that he was hiding – and she announced herself to him with a quiet “Steve” that carried the brunt of overmuch power behind it. Captain Rogers did not flinch, to his credit, but he did look sharply over his shoulder at her. Keshaara shrugged at him and made to move to sit next to him at his shadowy table in the back of the bar.

He simply stared at her as she made herself comfortable. Keshaara did not acknowledge him immediately. She was too busy sinking and rising on the tides of [D]Aedra within her. Speech was difficult without proper prompting from an outside source, and Keshaara was content to wait for Captain rogers to address her first.

“Keshaara.”

Her name sounded very odd on his tongue, she decided as she turned to look at him. Then again, it seemed as if  only Loki had ever really managed the trick of saying her name like she was something divine (and when he had said it the first hundred times, she had been anything but), and Keshaara was rather pleased that that was the truth. Her name never sounded sweeter than it had on _his_ lips.

“Why are you here?”

“James is my Companion. He is in trouble. You are here for the same reason as I.”

Captain Rogers frowned.

“You don't know him like _I_ know him,” he snapped, defensive all at once.

Keshaara turned her burning orange eyes upon Captain Rogers and stared. Silence reigned for a long few minutes before she placidly turned her attention back to the bar around her.

“I never said I did. But he is Brave Companion mine and I will not see him hurt again.”

She did not receive an immediate response, but she was more than content to sit and wait for one to be given, if one was needed. There was little to glean from the bar itself, not that Keshaara was not actively searching for something, anything, that would give her an indication that Captain Rogers was here for anything other than a shitty, watered-down ale. She did not mind the wait. There could always be something learned from a bar when you were looking for something in particular.

You just had to be open to finding it.

For a long while, there was silence between the two of them. It was not companionable, nor was it accusatory. The two of them simply sat, waiting and watching as the world moved around them through the filter of a shitty bar in the middle of nowhere.

“I can't lose him again.”

Keshaara blinked once, long and slow, before nodding.

“You won't. You haven't. He is still there.”

He turned to her, eyes narrow.

“Not the time for empty platitudes.”

Keshaara turned her head only slightly, glancing at Captain Rogers out of the corner of her eye. For one brilliant, heart-stopping moment, he _saw_ the inferno that lived in her, the maelstrom of fury and power and might and terror and awe and horror that strangled the breath in her lungs. He leaned away from her, shaking his head, and Keshaara looked away.

“He is still there. Within himself. I cannot find him, but I know he is there. He is not lost, not to either of us.”

Captain Rogers was quiet again, for a long while after that. Keshaara allowed him his silence. There was much to think about, she was sure. It was hard for her to think, if she were honest with herself. It took what felt like ages for a single thought that she recognized as her own to struggle to the surface of the morass that was her inner storm.

A not-so-secret part of her ached for her vampire’s touch. Things made sense when he touched her, everything fell back into place and he made her feel _right_ again. Then again, he was a vampire and that was rather his purpose…slowly, Keshaara shook her head, disregarding the idle thoughts. Honestly, it did not matter how much  she ached for him. It was inappropriate to do so, and really only the product of the whispers of Sanguine in her ear.

She had to devote nearly all of what remained of her _self_ to the task of denying the rising flood of Sanguine’s whispers, now that she had acknowledged them.

* * *

 _Thuri dovah?_ (Lord of Dragons?)

 _Nokl oblaan. Zu’u meyz._ (Your lie ends. I come.)

 **ZU’U MEYZ**.

* * *

Words of thunder and spite bubbled at the back of her throat and Keshaara had to bite her tongue until she tasted blood to keep from crying out. Still, she tensed, jumping in her seat, choking on a curse, her hand coming up to cover her mouth in case of any unfortunate…tentacle incidents. Captain Rogers reached out to grab her arm, pulling her back against the booth seat.

Keshaara snapped her head around to stare at him, eyes wide, and still mostly unseeing. She was scared for what she felt in her chest. Closing her eyes, she tried to calm herself down, walk herself back away from the edge she had been thrown to. Captain Rogers kept a hand on her arm for a heartbeat too long and Keshaara gently pulled her arm away. She did not need his comfort.

She shuddered as the compulsion left her and slowly opened her eyes again.

“Sorry. I…don’t have a lot of time. Who are we looking for here?”

“Are you…okay? What do you mean ‘not a lot of time’?”

Keshaara shook her head.

“No, and I don’t have a lot of time. We need to find James. Who are we looking for?”

Captain Rogers looked at her queerly, trying to suss out how badly she was doing.

“Focus, Captain Rogers.”

“Steve. My name is Steve.”

She bit her lip and nodded once. Steve, then. Steve needed to focus and work on finding what he came to find in this stupid bar so she could go find James. She needed to find James. Make sure he was safe. Make sure he was safe and taken care of so that she could…she could…

She shook her head again.

“Steve. Tell me what you’re doing here. I want to help and whatever is wrong with me will be coming to an end soon enough. I want to make sure James is safe before We come to an end.”

Keshaara could practically see Steve thinking through what she had said. Some words had not come out exactly as she had intended, and maybe showed more of what was going wrong than she had wanted. A deep breath, a clawed clutch at her throat and she remembered herself long enough for her to take an internal step back from the precipice in her chest.

Steve’s face had fallen, however, and he was staring at her.

There was some hint of concern in his face, and Keshaara turned away from him, finding somewhere – _anywhere_ – else to look that could get her away from his gaze and she could go find James. She just needed to find James and make sure he was safe before…before…before Alduin came.

“There’s a woman here who works for HYDRA. The group that has James. Or could have him. They broke him once, and I won’t let them take him again.”

Keshaara nodded once.

“Do you know who it is?”

“The redhead at the bar,” Steve said, pointing with his chin.

Keshaara picked out the woman easily. She was…pretty, in her own way. Why she was in a dive bar, sitting alone at a bar? Well, she wasn’t alone, per se, but she was clearly not enthused with any of the attention she was getting. In a certain way, she reminded Keshaara of Aela. The tenseness in her shoulders, the half-snarl that hovered on the corners of her lips. That made things much easier.

“What do we need to know from her?”

“Whatever she knows about where James is.”

Keshaara nodded, and stood.

“I’ll be back in a moment, then.”

Casually, she straightened her jacket and made her way as indirectly as she could manage to the bar at a polite difference from the woman who was surrounded by very interested men. Keshaara waited until the woman chanced a glance her way. Conspiratorially, Keshaara winked at her, and then tilted her head towards the bar as an invitation to drink. The woman frowned and shook her head, and Keshaara’s response was a pleased smile and a polite nod.

Keshaara ordered a drink for herself and quietly asked for a glass of water or tea to be brought to the beleaguered woman , depending on what the woman preferred. Her beer, when it was brought, was tepid and edging towards flat, but Keshaara needed to stick around at the bar for a while longer.  She sipped at the beer, kept her revulsion at its overall blandness down.

The game was one of waiting, luring and tempting. The target was receiving so much attention from others that really, all Keshaara had to do was wait. Wait and make casual eye contact and sympathetic nods whenever the target looked to her. It took a while, and only the slightest bit of lingering looks over to the other before the woman was sliding closer to her, and Keshaara was grinning sideways at her.

“My name’s Tabitha.”

“Hi Tabitha…I’m Ka…tie. It’s nice to meet you.”

Tabitha smiled broadly.

* * *

The alleyway behind the bar was disgusting. Dusty, dirty – _filthy_ , really. Fitting for what Keshaara was doing, with her mouth sealed against Tabitha’s, and Tabitha backed up against the wall. Tabitha, for her part, was pushing impatiently at Keshaara’s jacket, trying to get her at least partway out of her clothes so Tabitha could dig her fingers into Keshaara’s muscles.

The knuckles on Keshaara’s left hand ached, and blood smeared across the back of her fingers. She had had to punch one of the men who kept encroaching on Tabitha. Unsurprisingly, she had floored the man, and he hadn’t gotten back up by the time Tabitha had slid into her lap.

And now they were here.

In a filthy alley behind a shitty bar in the middle of somewhere.

The sky gave one single ominous rumble before it started pouring on the both of them. Tabitha squealed in shock and surprise, flinching away from Keshaara’s mouth so she could look up at the sky. With a shrug, Keshaara dipped her head to the other woman’s neck and mouthed at it, doing her level best not to succumb to the press of Molag Bal against her mind. This was a time for Sanguine.

Keshaara stripped her jacket off, holding it over both of their heads as the downpour carried on and let Tabitha get distracted with the bulk of muscle that twined down Keshaara’s arms. Tabitha set her nails into the Keshaara’s muscles, clawing with delicious amounts of pressure down her arms. Keshaara growled, the pain rousing deeper, darker desires in her that she had to squash or she was going to break little human Tabitha. But that didn’t stop the animalistic grunt when Tabitha’s little fingers dug into the meat of her shoulders and pulled her closer.

Another low growl as Keshaara loomed over Tabitha, and the shorter woman trembled, her eyes dark voids of pleasure. Keshaara’s grin was not welcoming or comforting as she looked down on her prey. Pretty, pretty prey.

A shiver gripped Keshaara’s spine as she leered down at pretty little Tabitha.

Dark voices in her chest screamed for absolute destruction, screamed to _break_ and _destroy_ because that was the _chaos_ of it all.

She ignored them and bent down to seal her mouth over Tabitha’s once again. Tabitha was wearing a flavored balm on her lips and the tingle of mint across their mouths made the taste of the rain water that slid down Keshaara’s form a delight, rather than a hindrance.

Keshaara nipped at Tabitha’s lower lip, gently, without any intention to break skin. Just for a brief enough moment for there to be pain, for Tabitha to flinch, for all of her defenses to flash out of her mind, and that was really all Keshaara needed. She shouldered into Tabitha’s mind, not quite as gentle as she could be, but far from how painful it could be. She had done this before, once with Loki, and it was easier this second time.

Tabitha’s mind was jumbled, confused and still interested in Keshaara. Wantonly so.

Keshaara preened beneath the praise. It had been a long, long while since she had felt the praise come so easily from another. The vampire didn’t count.

Regardless, she found what she needed and pulled it away. Tabitha gasped, looking up at Keshaara, her eyes wide and now brimming with tears.

“W-what?”

A smile fonder than it had any right to be danced across Keshaara’s lips and she bent lower to kiss Tabitha once more.

“Dear, nothing. Go home. Be safe. Take the jacket. Quit your job. Find a better place.”

Tabitha blinked unsteadily, but between her eyes opening, and then closing again, Keshaara was gone, leaving Tabitha standing, with a leather jacket over her head, in a dirty alley, and a nagging urge to quit her stupid desk job with that security firm. There were better ways for her to use her law degree, anyway.

 


	25. DESTROY

“You’re sure he’s in there?” Steve asked again, chancing a glance over a shoulder to Keshaara.

She nodded once, her eyes not moving from the small complex in front of them. There was an edge to the air around her, a vibration that made Steve’s eyes go wobbly whenever he tried to look at her too long. He blinked and shook his head. Keshaara did not move from her position, staring down the complex, clearly consumed by some thought or another.

“Keshaara, are you-”

“I will go first. You will follow. Once I have found James, remove him from the building. I will see you again at the Tower if time permits. Tell him I came for him when he wakes to himself.”

Steve blinked, trying to find words fast enough to respond, but in the moment between moments, she vanished, zipping out of sight. He tried to have faith that she was right, that this was all going to go well, and that she wasn’t going as mad as she had started to look, but Steve had seen a lot in the past few years and he was not going to believe in anything he couldn’t experience himself for a long while.

Carefully, he rose up out of his crouch and made his way down towards the buildings. He wasn’t certain what was going to happen next, but if Bucky was down there, he was going to do everything he could to get Bucky out.

* * *

The world moved around  Keshaara like a kaleidoscope with a thousand, thousand different shapes and colors all mixed together.

She knew what she wanted.

_James Barnes._

And why she wanted it.

 _He is my friend_.

And what was complicating the matter.

 ** _THEY TOOK HIM_**.

Everything else faded away before that thought. She knew much and more of her emergent strength, knew that the weight of it was crushing her, knew that the more she used it, the more it would consume her. She knew all of that.

And _none_ of it mattered.

A wall to her left crumbled into dust.

She was coming for her friend. She would always come for her friends, and James was one of the last ones that lived.

Keshaara shuddered and the world shook with her. She could not bear to look at the world around her, but she knew what was happening in it anyway. The people around her disintegrated. They did not deserve life. Not for what they had done. They hurt James. They died.

Walls peeled away from her, the floor buckled. She heard people screaming, the sharp pop of guns firing, and then the screech of the metal of those weapons as she tore them to pieces with a flex of her might. It was…it felt good. It felt so good.

Everything felt right like this.

The screams made her breaths come sharper, quicker. She knew where James was. She knew where to go, and what to do. She was going to do what she needed to do.

Keshaara took a deep breath in, trying to stabilize herself. She had to center herself in the moment. The smell of blood, the whimpers of those who still had breath to draw, the way the world warped around her as she unmade everything that angered her. Everything that stoked her ire, everything that grated against her sensibilities, all of it, she destroyed. It was a bitter panacea, a horrible replacement for what she actually wanted, it did nothing but remind her of how much more she was still missing.

There was a hole through her very spirit and not even the pressure of all the Aedra and Daedra could fill it. Not even when she felt full to bursting with their power did it even come close to filling the void that Loki had left in her. It wasn’t fair, it was not even close to being fair but there was nothing she could do about it except _rage_ and make the world _hurt_ for the pain she felt.

The only thing that stopped her was the breathless “Kesh?” from someone whose voice she knew.

The overwhelming urge to destroy lessened, and then vanished completely. She blinked stars and galaxies out of her vision and looked down. James was there, staring up at her with his eyes wide and full of wonder. Or terror. Or something else. She couldn’t tell anymore. Keshaara took a deep breath in, let the rage bleed to just the corners of her vision, and nodded at him.

“It’s me, James. I’m here. I brought Steve.”

The words felt heavy on her tongue, like she was speaking through a wall of grit and sand. James stared at her, looking as lost as she felt.

He nodded once, reaching out for her, and without even thinking about it, she stepped forward and let him gather her into his arms. He collapsed against her, shivering as soon as he was safely pressed against her. Keshaara, already bearing the weight of the powers of the divine and profane and overwhelmed by that much, caught his weight easily and held him gently, surprising even herself.

“I got you, James. I will keep you safe. Please. Trust me.”

He nodded, pressing his face into her neck. Keshaara slung an arm around his waist and tried to hold back the howling in her throat for just a little bit longer. He was her anchor point and it was a shaky point to base everything on, but it was truly all she had. It was all she had.

She held him tight, trying to let her physical senses overwhelm the warring feelings in her chest. James needed her, and she was going to help him. Steve…if Steve were here right now, she could put James in Steve’s care and let the rest of this rage bleed out of her. James was groggy, hurt, and needed help from someone who was put together inside.

As much as Keshaara wanted to be that person for James, she was far from being capable of doing so. He needed Steve.

“Let’s get to Steve, James. He can help you more.”

James nodded into her shoulder, but made no move to step away. Keshaara could understand. He was relying on her in this moment, and she was certain that she felt – and looked – like she had everything under control. She could pretend. She had pretended for decades before. A little bit longer she could handle, she could handle it. She could. For James, she could be strong enough.

She blinked grit and blood out of her eyes. Focus. She needed to focus. Let everything go. Just…relax for a while. Not let the terrible fires of destruction roam so freely through her chest.

Steve’s hand fell heavily on her shoulder. Keshaara looked at him, her orange eyes spinning shades of red and silver throughout. She looked at him, she looked through him, she saw him in ways that could really only ever be defined as _piercing_. He reached a hand out to James, and Keshaara saw red for a moment.

“ **MINE** ,” the world around her howled.

No one would take James from her – he was hers and hers alone and she would not give him to –

“Keshaara, please. We need to get James out of here,” Steve said, his voice low, and his hand carefully remaining in place on James’ shoulder.

Slowly, she unwound herself from James and let Steve take him instead. The cacophony of the world around her rose up again. The screams, the groaning concrete, the dissonant wail of some siren in the background, all of it rushed back in. Keshaara had to hold steady to keep from flinching away from it. It was so much, so loud, so nearly overwhelming that it was all she could do to keep from screaming, herself.

Steve took James by the hand and led him away from Keshaara. She watched them go, consumed by the needling desire to protect James from anything and everything, to build worlds and destroy them at his whims. He deserved that. Deserved someone who would keep him safe through the fire and flames of the chaos, and while Keshaara knew she could keep him safe, knew that she could easily do it, but she also knew that it was better if she didn’t.

She blinked and let the powers that burned in her roar once again. The ground bucked under her feet, tearing rifts in the earth beneath the foundation, cutting electric lines and water pipes with mad abandon.

Keshaara didn’t know how else to let the burning in her heart subside. She wanted everything to burn as violently as the power in her chest did, but nothing matched the intensity she felt.

Dust clouded the air, blood squelched underfoot, and Keshaara let the unmatched and unhinged power of the Aedra and Daedra flow through her.

She was small and mortal and insignificant and not enough, not ever enough, but damn everything else to every last one of the Hells that existed in all of Mundus –

She was going to _try_.

* * *

Keshaara melted into her room in the Tower, stepping out of the shadows to find nothing changed in her room, save for the thin film of dust that covered everything. She took a deep, stabilizing breath, blinking fractals of spinning light out of her field of vision. Her bed was a siren’s song to her aching heart and without a thought for the grime that crusted her skin, or the blood that seeped from her nose, her ears, and the corner of her eyes.

She collapsed into her bed, curling into a small ball and falling into a deep sleep.


	26. Earth

The Tale of the Dragonborn  
_Aus. Bah. Dir._

* * *

Keshaara woke up in a blind panic. Her world was spinning and she could swear that she heard the voice of her most sworn enemy in her dreams and – Farkas and Loki, they had been just next to her, the blood of vampires burned in her blood but she still had to defend the world, and everything in it. She had to defend them all and –

No.

That was centuries ago.

She had done that centuries ago. She was in the Avengers tower, on a bed that was more comfortable than anything in Asgard, and far more comfortable than anything in Skyrim could have ever conceptually been.

Shaking her head, Keshaara sat up in her bed, blinking spots and swirls out of her vision. It only barely worked, and not even in any way that would qualify as “good enough”. She was…she felt _sick_. Like the worst illness she had ever suffered through, doubled over again.

She staggered to her feet, stumbling and barely catching herself on the far wall.

“Miss Keshaara, are you well?” JARVIS’ voice came through a tinny speaker in the corner.

Keshaara took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

“No, I don’t think I am. I think something really bad is happening. About to happen. Has happened. I don’t know. Everything’s hard to think through.”

“Miss Keshaara, you are speaking a language I do not know. Please-”

She clicked her tongue against her teeth and shook her head again. Focusing was hard. Loki had given her the All-Tongue once upon a once upon and she couldn’t find it in her to use that instead of, what had she been speaking? Morrowindish? Daedric? Dovah? She didn’t know.

Trying to collect her thoughts enough to get _one specific_ language to come out when she spoke was a task that felt impossible with the weight of everything pressing against her teeth as she tried to talk but…

“I’m…sorry, JARVIS. I’m not well. There is a bad…storm coming. I can’t think well. I can’t do anything well….Something awful is about to happen.”

“Miss Keshaara, would you like me to inform the other Avengers of your situation?”

Keshaara took a deep breath in, and tried to rein everything back. It was so hard. Like trying to think through concrete, like trying to build on sand, everything she did sunk back into itself. It came slow, when it came to her, struggling up out of the tar-fields of her mind –

“Evacuate the city,”  her mouth said

Her mind, staggering behind, filled her head with the thoughts of why it needed to be done.

Black wings were coming, and she remembered the feeling of the battles hard-fought long before. Through space, through tie, across realms of existence, she had chased him, once. And the cycle always closed in on itself. Everything came to an end. This time, it was she who would be hunted, she who would have to find a final place to stand and fight, amongst the souls of all those who had gone before, and it would be she who would have to face the –

JARVIS did not stutter, did not give any outward sign of panic or surprise, save for a crackle in the speaker.

She heard the warning sirens start, wailing in the distance.

Fuck, they could have been right in her ear, and it still would have sounded no louder than a whisper.

Keshaara looked up. Through layers of concrete, glass, rebar and wires, her eyes saw straight through to the heavens, where she knew a split would open, bridging Mundus and Midgard together just long enough for the massive body of Akatosh to come through.

Their fight would destroy the city if she let it.

She had half a mind to allow it.

She had half a mind.

(Sheograth cackled.)

* * *

 _§You are running out of ti~ime. Moments left, just moments, little liesmith._ §

Loki pressed his hands to his ears, trying to block out the still-present, but fading voice. It had plagued him since he had drank Keshaara’s blood as a faux vampire. He shouldn’t have let it go that far, he should have found another way to rein her back, because this _voice_ was almost as bad as the Tesseract whispering in his ear.

Except this voice knew Keshaara. Intimately. Knew her inside and out.

 _§Ooooh, and inside **again** , little liesmith. She never bore my bastard though. Luc-ky, luc-ky, yo~ou. Fucked a Dovahkiin good and proper, then let h-_§

“Enough! Enough, enough, enough already.”

 _§Eheheh, ask pre~etty, little liesmith._ _Ask pretty and polite and I’ll tell you whatever you want to know about our fledgling dragon._ §

“She’s not yours,” Loki said petulantly, slowly pulling his hands away from his ears.

The giggling in the background of his mind as he worked was something he could just about ignore at this point, he had grown rather used to it, in his own way.

He was almost done, almost had all the strings held in his hand, almost was ready to go out, back into the world, to gather his Keshaara back into his arms and tell her all the great and glorious things that they would do together. It only needed a little bit longer, just a day, maybe a wek, nothing at all on the grander time scale, something he could do if he just had the fucking **time** , and he knew he was running out, running short, and as long as everything held together, as long as nothing else happened in such a way beyond his predictions, he could do this.

He could save everything.

Make everyone happy.

Go back to Keshaara.

He wouldn’t have to play dead, he could go back and wipe all the pain away and he could do it all as long as he just had enough time.

 _§Time’s up._ §

“What?”

Silence.

Shoegrath’s voice faded, his laughter faded, everything faded, and as Loki stood in the small pocket dimension he had crafted for himself as a way to have a workspace that wasn’t in danger of being found out at any moment, he felt the creeping hand of dread rest against the back of his neck.

The voice came back, but the laughing, mocking tone had vanished.

 _§Akatosh comes for the last bastion of the Cycle. He’s going to destroy her_. §

“We’ll stop him. She’s-”

 _§She destroyed Alduin. Not Akatosh. Alduin was a simple matter, the world and everything demanded he taste defeat at her hands. Whenever she has come to be in the Cycle, she defeated him, and then died. You changed that_. §

Loki felt panic rise up in him. The words came faster now, rushed, as if Sheograth was trying to get as many ideas out as fast as possible, lest his own time be upon him.

 _§You changed something that had never been changed. You introduced a new variable. Madness, chaos, all of this, all of what happened all of it was you and you alone. Better or worse or indifferent, you changed it. The first major change in all my many years. Do you know how many times I’ve watched myself be made and unmade in madness? How at the dawn of every Cycle, I – you have no idea what I’ve been through. Madness is a small comfort compared to the rest of it. You changed it. However you did, it was changed. You changed **her.** You made all this possible._ §

He gathered his power around him, and listened to what it was that Sheograth was whispering, even as the words came faster, more in a tangle –

 _§Alduin is one thing. When he appears, it is Akatosh rebelling against the Cycle, but it always reverts back after he is killed. Keshaara killing Alduin after freeing you back and succumbing to the stupid name she had been made to wear was what it was meant to be and not what it was meant to be. No mortal should ever bear the brunt of my brothers and sisters the way she did, and then to bear it all at once and for perpetuity?? **Fuck** you have no idea what that meant to the rest of us who so rarely have worshippers actually worth a conversation. She was everything, everything to us – to me. She came and conquered and then was dragged back down and she went with all willingness to do what was best. Akatosh – he will drag her, drag us all back down down down into it and I’m so **tired** of this fight, of these stories, they all turn out the same, there’s no game in it anymore I want there to be something new and I have it now, we have it now, you have it now and I will not will not will not let her die like this and be dragged back. She has enough – has had enough, do you know the length and breadth of her suffering? Of course not, of course not, because you haven’t been watching her go mad for centuries, haven’t watched her throw herself at wall after wall trying to escape a country that was too small, too small for her, and at the end of it all, still standing up and trying to do what is right. Fuck **everything** , I want this to end, I want her to have an ending, I want this Cycle to finally close and let us all pass along. I want this to stop. Go kill a dragon, go kill a god, go save your wife, go do it all, but don’t fuck it up. I will come back to you if you do, and not even that Eye of Magnus’ influence can match what I will **do to you**. I am a **God** in truth, not misunderstanding, and I will **destroy you** if you fail._ §

Loki trembled, his knees going weak and the sudden sense of the tipping madness that lurked beneath the veneer of trickery of Sheograth.

A trickster he was, yes. Considered a God he was, yes. A prince, a King, yes.

But he could not match Sheograth, even as a Shade of himself. He had but a sliver of power from the Daedra within him, a shadow of a shadow and it was still enough to make him shiver. He felt the hands of the great and terrible power wrap around his throat. Nails dug into his flesh.

His mind bent under the pressure and unbidden, images flashed through his mind –

_Her body stretched out on an altar to Sanguine, chest flayed open. Her back was arched in ecstasy, not agony. Her mouth was open in a scream as Sanguine Himself dug his fingers into her stomach, his mouth on her cunt, his teeth painted in more of her blood._

_Nocturnal Herself had Keshaara on her knees, bound and trussed up like a favored toy. She still had her clothes on, nothing salacious was happening, not like with Sanguine but this was even better. Cloaked in shadow, unseen despite the government leaders in the room. Unseen unseen unseen._

_Her belly was swollen, and her hand cradled the apex of the curve. Protective, even though she knew that there was nothing she could do to stop Hermaeus Mora, as his tentacles wrapped around her throat and wrist. Words of insanity and power looped through the air, leaving burning afterimages floating in her line of sight._

So many more images, all of Keshaara and the Daedra, of Keshaara bleeding, of Keshaara broken, of Keshaara mad, insane, crazy, dying. He felt his heart breaking again. She suffered. He watched her suffer. He did nothing to stop it. He could not do anything to stop it. He could only watch in terror and apprehension as it happened again and again and again.

Centuries of this, all compounded into Keshaara suffering, Keshaara in pain, and despite any momentary weakness, a scream, a shaking limb, tears of agony and ecstasy rolling down her cheeks, and he had to watch.

The hand on his throat pulled away.

The images stopped.

Loki fell to his knees, trying to reconcile everything he saw, a whirling cacophony of everything that had ever been part of his…part of Keshaara’s life.

He had forgotten what it meant when she served a prince.

He remembered what he had done to her.

 _§She deserves a gentle epilogue, Little Liesmith. She deserves rest. She deserves more than what people have pushed into her hands. Give her something better. Life or glory or madness. Make it better. If she comes to me again, if I see her in the Cycle again, deaf and mute to all of what has happened to her, I will find you, Loki Laufeyson, Loki Friggason, however you want to call yourself. I have your name. I will call you to my side and you will suffer the madness she does. I will watch you suffer, make you suffer as she does_. §

Loki shivered again, his skin crawling and suddenly chilled beneath the armor he wore.

“I don’t…I still need _time_ ,” he said softly.

His heart was breaking. He was uncertain that he could do what needed to be done. He didn’t know if he could do this. He wanted to. He needed to. Keshaara needed him. But…

 _§Do something. Or die_.§

He took a deep breath and unraveled his magic. Loki knew where Keshaara was, he always knew where she was, like a star in his heart that he always navigated by. The magic guided him, and unfurled from him. The quiet of his pocket dimension faded.

There was fire.

And screaming.

And the sounds of dragons.

* * *

Keshaara blinked and found herself on the roof of the Avengers Tower. There were alarms blaring everywhere, and the streets were packed with the sounds of panic. There was no way for there to be a proper evacuation. Not in the time that remained. Akatosh was coming. There would be death.

It was all acceptable.

There was nothing else that mattered in this moment.

Two of them, nothing else.

Mundus was not her place. This world made of stars and matter so far removed from her own home – where she belonged. She was going to be made to return. But not without making Akatosh bleed for it. Make them all bleed for it. Scream for it.

They had spent eons hurting her. She hurt all the way through her core, and this was finally going to end it. She wanted to be done. Either in glory or misery. She was going to be done. Akatosh was going to die or she was or they both were. It didn’t matter.

Divines and Daedra all together, it didn’t matter.

Between one breath and the next, armor settled on her skin. The weight was familiar. The armor was not. It was a manifestation of all the different powers that vied for dominance in her. She didn’t bother looking at herself. It didn’t matter.

The air shivered.

The sky split open.

She didn’t blink. Akatosh appeared in front of her. He appeared as human before her, not bothering to put on the airs of a Dragon. He stood easily in front of her, his eyes black as coal, his skin rough and scaled. He wore the robes of the king, the Emperor and even with the air shimmering around him, he looked like a man.

Just a man.

Her axe was in her hand. She felt her mouth draw down into a frown.

Akatosh just looked at her.

She stared back.

¤You should have been done centuries ago, _Dovahkiin._ ¤

“I know. But I am not.”

Her voice echoed, reverberating through the sky. Everything else dropped away. It didn’t matter anymore. It was just the two of them, and the everything-ness everywhere else fell away. The two of them stood on top of a Tower in a city full of chaos, regarding each other. Keshaara’s hand tightened on her axe. She prepared for a battle.

“I have killed you before, Akatosh.”

¤We are different now, Dovahkiin. ¤

She frowned.

“Not by many moments.”

¤You know nothing of what you have done. What you have brought into my beautiful Cycles. What you have _done_. ¤

“I don’t care what I have done. It is over now, isn’t it? This is that moment. Dovahkiin kills the last dragon, the last soul is consumed and then. It’s over. I die, and we’re done. No Mundus. Nothing. Just emptiness.”

She felt a grin break across her face. Blood dripped from her nose, down her chin.

¤You’re mad. ¤

“I’m old. I’m broken. I’m so many things.”

He frowned.

¤Yes. And you are _mad_. ¤

“Insane. Pissed. Yes. I want blood. Something will make me feel better, hopefully it’ll be your death.”

She rushed him, moving faster than any mortal could hope to match. Akatosh was not mortal. He pulled a dagger free and caught her axe on his blade. Keshaara snarled, and the world shook around her. Akatosh responded in kind, his voice sundering the sky. Everything around her bucked, gave way, and she pulled her axe back to swing again.

¤You use a power that is not yours to command. ¤

“I use what was forced on me!” she shouted back, her fury taking the form of a firestorm that warped the concrete and steel.

¤It was not meant to be like this! ¤

“BUT IT IS!”

The fight between the two of them shook the world with every strike. Akatosh threw her into a building. She felt it crumple around her, screeching metal and shattering glass. Maybe she was cut, maybe she was bleeding. All she felt was rage though. All she wanted to do was murder. She wanted to kill Akatosh, tear his throat out with her teeth.

Slowly, she picked herself up out of the side of the building, glass sloughing off of her armor in a cacophony that didn’t even come close to soothing the rage in her. Keshaara looked up just in time to catch Akatosh’s fist in her mouth, driving her back into the building. Blood, now, she tasted, dark and thick and running through her teeth.

¤You should have been content to die, you should have let us erase this all, should have let me stop this, and keep the Cycles going! ¤

The voice of storms shook her to the core, and she screamed under the onslaught.

There was no language that could accurately represent what it was that transpired between them. She screamed and screamed and screamed, her voice full of rage and hatred and defiance. Keshaara howled, even as Akatosh’s mailed fist closed around her throat and the world went black.

She howled, she screamed, she clawed at his arm and Earth swam in her vision, fading out as she roared her defiance to the stars that winked out in the sky above her. Everything blurred, went dark, and she fell down into darkness.


	27. Ashlandeh

The Tale of the Ashlander

* * *

The air was heavy with the smell of smoke.

 It smelled like home.

Keshaara stretched out under the furs of her Mother’s bed, her muscles tight from sleep. The stretch felt good, letting still-growing muscles start to relax before she put them to work. Her shoulder ached from sparring with her brother last night, and her throat was sore from singing with one of her Fathers as they had worked on setting things up for a new set of drying racks.

She had much work to do, but she did want to get out of bed just yet. It was so comfortable.

She heard someone outside the tent call for her, and with a soft groan, she slowly rolled out from underneath the blankets.

Rubbing her eyes tiredly, Keshaara meandered out of her Mother’s tent to a familiar scene. She might be young, and only just getting to the age where she would start having her own sons and daughters as the adults had more children, or more were adopted. It was going to be soon that her family would expect her to start leading others. She was small, young, not yet of the maturity to have children of her own, nor of the age to even be interested in children.

But old enough to be a Mother, soon enough.

She was not greeted beyond a precursory head-bob by one of her younger Mothers. She knew what she needed to do. Her morning tasks were the same, and would be the same for a while longer.

Her family was growing again, moving and changing positions as it did every few months or so. Morrowind was ash and fire and when the lava floes moved, so did they. Sure, there were permanent towns, sure, Keshaara as a Nord-born might have probably come from one of those towns once upon the dawn of her life, but she had grown up only knowing her family as it was now.

And she loved her family.

Bare feet on ash-covered earth beat out small, staccato rhythms as she raced to her favorite Father, who bent down for her, his arms spread wide. With a shout, he grabbed her and flung her into the air.

Her squeal of laughter drew an answering, deeper laugh from her Father. Morrowindish poured from both of their mouths in equal parts, and she reached out to tug on his long ear. He was mer, she was Nord, but this wasn’t Skyrim. This was Morrowind, of ash and fire, and they were nomads. The worries of Skyrim did not touch her, she was too young for it.

It did not matter when one of the Eldest Mothers hissed something in a language Keshaara did not yet speak –

* * *

“ _Put her down, you know better than to allow for such frivolity. She must be trained yet. Kept from Skyrim, yes, but not for years yet. Leave off your affection, do not give her hope.”_

“ _She is a **child** , Mother. Allow her this much._”

* * *

Because Father had her in his arms and he was spinning her around in dizzying circles, and she was laughing and laughing and laughing.

Her day was similar as to many of the others she had had and remembered so far. She was small, not strong yet, but had lost much of the baby fat that children had. She was going to start her first real growth spurt sometime soon, and she already had the body aches to prove that it was going to be a big one.

She was going to be big and tall one day. Strong and powerful. She was going to be taller than her Father and stronger than him too. It was going to be good. She was going to be amazing. Father said so. And she loved her Father. He and her were never ever going to be parted.

The years passed, she grew older, grew up, and never stepped foot in Skyrim. When she was of age to go out and find herself a husband, she walked deeper into Morrowind, away from the border of ash, where she found herself a living adventuring and travelling as a nomad would. She never settled down in one place for too long.

She had lovers as she saw fit, dark haired, with green eyes, pale skin and slender bodies. Her type was…was…

 


	28. Tower

With a sharp, high cry, Keshaara came back to herself, punching Akatosh’s hand off of her throat, air flooding into her lungs and burning her with the intensity of a dozen stars. She struggled to her feet. Glass was still shattering on either side of her, and as she shook her head, she felt something escape from between her teeth.

Confusion reigned as she tried to understand what had happened. Her world…that wasn’t right. That hadn’t been right. She was Ashlander. Yes. But she had spent so much of her time in Skyrim. She had been Dovahkiin. Known the voice of storms. She had had friends, a family, lovers, and _Loki_.

She brought her hands up to catch a strike she knew was coming. But she wasn’t fast enough, and one of Akatosh’s daggers bit into her side. With a roar, Akatosh threw her out of the building, flinging her across the street. Keshaara barely managed to get her shoulder turned into the hit before she slammed into the plate glass windows and skidded across the carpeted flooring, her armor scoring a huge gouge through it.

Keshaara found her feet in barely enough time to get her axe up to block Akatosh’s next attack. His dagger was flung far to the side, and despite her mind and body both reeling from the combination of physical and psychic attacks, she pressed forward, ignoring the sudden lack of armor over her left shoulder.

There was a smear of ash where she had skidded across the ground, humming with the fast-vanishing power of one of the Daedra. Keshaara remembered herself. The fight didn’t give her much time to reflect on the wrongness of what she had seen, but she knew that there would be more in this same vein.

It was all tragic and confusing. She was staggering through the steps of the fight, stumbling over herself, hardly managing to get her blade or armor up in time to defend herself from Akatosh’s attacks.

Magic snapped between the two of them. Brutal and bright, the magic cut the air in between them, seeking out weaknesses, trying to gain the upper hand. Keshaara snarled, trying to find some manner of opening for herself, but nothing came to her. Akatosh was brutal, slashing and stabbing with the indomitable force of all of creation, and it took everything Keshaara had to just stay standing, let alone actually forcing a fault in Akatosh’s own fight.

The two of them traded blows. Her armor took the brunt of the blows, sparks flying. She was driven back, and back, and back. She could not advance on him, could not push him back, could not gain anything in the fight. She lost, and lost and lost, but she kept defending, kept fighting, kept doing her damndest to keep her blade up.

She gave as good as she could, fighting and snarling and screaming her rage back at Akatosh.

Keshaara felt blood slick her skin, felt everything in her sicken and shiver, but she did not stop. She didn’t care if it hurt her, she didn’t care if it managed to finally kill her. If this was suicide, it was suicide. She didn’t care. She didn’t care. She didn’t fucking care. If it was over, it was over. However it ended, it was over.

It would be over. Fuck everything, it would be over.

Akatosh tackled her to the ground, his dagger sinking deep into the flesh of her shoulder. Ice flushed through her veins, poison unlike any she had ever come across weakening her system too quickly for her to react.

She sank to her knees, clutching at the poisoned dagger with her gloved hand, trying to wrench it out, but her grip faltered. The knife was stuck into the bone of her shoulder and it hurt. It hurt so _bad_.

Akatosh stood over her, looking down with his brows knit together and a deep frown on his face.

“You should have…Dovahkiin…you should have stopped years ago. This whole thing should have never happened. It would have been better, kinder, if it had never happened.”

She snarled at him, clawing at his arm, his neck, his face. His blood was scalding hot against her skin, burning through her armor, and between the ice and fire, she lost herself to all of it. The pain cleansed her thoughts of anything but how much it fucking hurt.

She closed her eyes and grit her teeth, trying to hold on to consciousness, to rage against the oncoming darkness that threatened to overwhelm her, to rage and rage and rage because all she was, was fury inside. There was nothing to mitigate the darkness, nothing to sate her appetites.

Keshaara’s voice strained out into nothing more than a whimper. And again.

Darkness took her.


	29. Sosnaak

The Tale of the Vampire

* * *

She shook her head, trying to clear the crush of pain that was dominating her senses. Slowly, she picked herself up off the ground, exhaling sharply, trying to keep herself together.

Her whole body ached.

Keshaara pressed her back up against the cave wall, leaning her head back against the cave and trying to will her fangs away. Every time she woke up, she woke up covered in blood. Sticky against her throat, cloyingly sweet against the roof of her mouth, matting her hair, coating the grooves of her armor, it got everywhere. She was supposed to be a neat eater, supposed to follow a strict regimen of feeding only from the unsuspecting, slowly, every night, so she would not lose herself to the bloodlust.

Her hands found the pouch at her hip, and without even thinking about it, without needing to think about it, without even having to take a moment to consider it, she had her pipe out, skooma prepared, and fire danced on her fingers just long enough to light it.

She knew what she had done. There was enough blood on her skin to make it really fucking obvious as to what had happened.

She was in some fucking bandit’s camp-cave, somewhere out past Whiterun.

She was covered in blood and had woken up in the same sort of pain she always woke up in after gorging herself.

And her skooma that she had bought from the Khajiit outside Whiterun was still mostly full.

And she needed another hit.

The pipe was in her mouth before she could think. That was most of the entire point. She could sit and let the skooma take everything else out of her. She was a husk already. Dovahkiin, sure. Thane, sure.

But she daren’t venture into towns anymore. It was getting out of hand, it was all getting out of hand. She was losing more and more of herself every time she lost control. She would go on rampages fueled by a bloodlust she was helpless to keep herself from. The skooma had helped, once upon a time. It didn’t anymore.

Now the two dangerous parts of her addictions were ganging up on her. She would float away in a skooma haze, her body lifting out of itself, flying through stars in the shapes of trees, with green-eyed lovers reaching to caress her skin and layer caresses over scars that had never been there until she looked at them, and then come back to herself amidst carnage.

It would be blood, and blood, and blood, and nothing else.

The khajiit were catching on, she knew.

There were only so many people like her in the entirety of history, she couldn’t expect anyone else to understand what it was like to be in this position. She had been a vampire for years now. It was only getting worse, she could hear the whispers of Harkon in her every dream, urging her to return to his side, a pretty bauble for the rest of her days and nothing else, nothing more.

It was a terrible fate, but one she could not turn her eyes away from.

So she exhaled a long stream of smoke into the blood-choked air and tried to remember what she was supposed to do.

Save the world.

Save them all.

All of them who avert their eyes when she walks past, all of them who taint the air with heavy brown and grimey greens with their words of mistrust and unappreciation. She was to save them. Save them from the doom on blackened wings.

She felt wings where she had arms if she thought about it. Saw wings that burned with an inner gleam not unlike that of the fire agate she had started to horde whenever she found it.

She felt wind against her scales, a void reaching out to her, daring her to fall down into it, to do nothing but drown in everything black. There was someone down there who had fallen already, and it would be a shame to not fall with them.

With him.

It was always him.

Keshaara flinched away from the idea she knew him. She didn’t. She had never met anyone like the wraith who had haunted her dreams.

She knew she hadn’t.

The euphoria kicked in when she thought of him, anyway.

She looked at a shadow of a man she had never met and felt her entire body ache with loneliness. Loneliness and loss were her constant companions, but…

She stood quickly, pushing herself up off the blood-soaked cave wall, blinking spots and visions out of her eyes, searching the cave for anything useable. Money for the next batch of skooma, or ingredients for it if she was incapable of finding someone willing to sell to her, that would be good. Baubles to sell or trade, also good.

The bodies were scattered where they had fallen, throats torn open, eyes gaping wide and unseeing, mouths frozen in screams of agony. Or ecstasy. She wasn’t certain.

She remembered Harkon biting her. Remembered that it burned like fire. Remembered she could not burn, not really. Remembered that in the aftermath it had hurt and had hurt in a way that she had never been hurt before. Something in her had broken, something deep had been taken away. She had tried to patch the hole with skooma, and that only widened it. She had tried to patch the hole with bloodbaths, and that only made her miss whatever it was all the more.

But looking at the men and women she had slaughtered, she rather doubted any of them had felt anything for more than a few moments.

Her hands had been claws, capable of rending their simple leather armor into shreds, ripping out their innards as her mouth had taken long, deep draughts from their throats.

How had it happened, how had she managed to overwhelm all seven of the bandits here.

She should not be that strong, not really. She had been hungry, yes. She had been terrifying, yes. But they…all of them had the same sort of wound.

Keshaara flexed her muscles and rolled her shoulders under her armor. She was not injured, she didn’t think. Nothing pinged as jagged red to her senses, and the skooma always made the pain _feel_ in ways other things never quite managed to do. She wasn’t hurt. She had not taken any attack, but there was no way she could have done this stealthily.

She had torn them to shreds, drank their life blood out of them and then, she observed, without her stomach turning or body retching at the sight, she had supped on their fatty livers, consuming more and more of them.

A smile, broken and fractured like more than just a few of her teeth, cracked across her face. She was turning more and more into a monster, wasn’t she.

It was no longer enough just to drain the blood of seven bandits. No, now she was a cannibal too, in more ways than she had been before. She had consumed more of their flesh than just the blood, and it had done nothing for the hunger pangs she still felt down deep in her stomach.

She took another long drag of skooma, the pipe hanging from the corner of her mouth. It could stay there.

One of the shelves that had been knocked over as she had tackled a bandit against it, his blood smeared across the wood that remained intact. She leaned over the shelf, searching for anything of interest that could be salvaged from the mess she had made.

Three bottles of skooma lay on the ground.

The laugh that sliced its way out of her raw, abused throat sounded like shattered glass, even to her own ears.

That did rather explain a lot. The blood was tainted with skooma, they hadn’t moved because they weren’t aware of her even being present. Fine, well and good. She had taken them in the middle of their social smoking hour. Three bottles was more than enough for seven, a good reward, a nightcap, a simple addiction that had not been given the time to cycle out of control as hers had done. It would have, though. There was only ever one end to this addiction, this crush of need for something like skooma.

The itching of her fangs, however, was going to be a problem before the lack of skooma was. It really really was going to be a problem. She needed _more_ , she hissed, even as the skooma the bandits had not been able to enjoy made its way into her pack.

She needed more, she needed more, she needed more.

Another long drag of her own pipe made the thoughts recede just enough for a single, clarifying thought come through: if she took this cave for her own, if she cleaned it up, lapped the blood and dust off the floor with a tongue longer than any had any right to be, she could…she could trap other adventurers here.

Lure them in.

Bandits and wannabe heroes alike.

They would come to her den, this was _her_ den now, nice and dark and desolate and not so far removed that no one would ever find it, but far enough away that no one Hold would try and send too many guards out to capture her if she got greedy.

It was a good den.

She could horde up here. Create a nice little cozy murder place. It would be good.

It would be better than good. It would make things better.

The itching faded.

She prepared her trap.

Down, down down in the dark, hunched over a pile of rotting corpses that brought in more walking corpses, she lost herself in a haze of blood and skooma. It kept her from thinking too much, kept her from hearing the calls, the shouts, the demands for her action as the world fell to pieces outside her cave.

It didn’t matter.

What mattered was the blood.

And the visions.

The visions of love, and safety, of a life she had never lived, centuries that she had never experienced. Of a man she never met, and things that could never happen. She sat, she lay down, she luxuriated in the myriad of possibilities that her mind constructed out of nothing. It was the only way she found any sort of peace. Between the skooma and the bloodlust she was never not in some sort of pain or discomfort.

But the dreams she had, of places she had never seen (a tree of stars, a man in green, an impossible trueborn son, a dozen children nonetheless, dragons in the sky over a place gilded in gold, a world made of glass and bright lights, and so, so, so much more) were her solace. Everything she did was to further those dreams.

Sink deeper into them.

Drown in them.

Alduin never found her. She heard dragoncall outside, and knew, in her dreams, she understood what they were saying, but in waking, the words meant nothing.

She heard the world ending, and did nothing.

It didn’t matter. None of it really mattered. Her actions could not stop the horrors outside. Her body atrophied, she discarded her armor and her weapons because nothing could stand against her claws and fangs anyway. She was a ravening beast, no better than anything else except in ability to deal death. Her dreams became the only vestige of humanity left in her, the fever dreams, the madness of skooma that could convince her mind and body it was whole again, that she was desired and loved and lovely again, that she was victorious and had brought glory to a thousand, thousand generations of warriors, that she was in and deserving of Sovengarde for her bravery and actions…

 But no. She was alone, and forsaken in the world, and it was only when she finally ran out of bodies, when the skooma was no more, despite her stockpiles, when madness and hunger and fury finally drove her forward, out into the light of a scorched earth under an unending sun, that the Last Dovahkiin finally ended. 

 

 


	30. Breathe

Keshaara cried out, reaching across her body to pull the knife from her shoulder. She sliced the air where Akatosh had been with her new weapon, but he was already gone, retreating out of her range, his eyes dark with magic.

She threw the knife at him, and he dodged it, darting out of the way.

Another piece of her armor turned to ash, leaving her chest free and open to another attack. She was open and vulnerable to more and more. The daedric armor she had been wearing was flaking away, taking power and the background noise and pressure of the Daedra from her.

She didn’t care. She didn’t. What she wanted was to kill Akatosh. She wanted this all to end. However it ended, it was going to be over.

Her hand pressed to the bleeding wound in her shoulder, and she struggled to her feet. Blood slicked her entire arm, and no matter how hard she pressed and tried to call up her healing magic, the wound did not seal. Akatosh had come. She lost more and more of herself to every strike they traded. Her magic, her power, all of it was being taken away and she didn’t know how to do anything to stop it.

Maybe she couldn’t.

Maybe she wouldn’t win this.

She snarled, clenching her fist.

Keshaara had felt pain before, she had succumbed to pain and pain and pain unending. She had never let it control her though. She had lost everything. Time and again, she had lost everything.

And a fury had been born in her chest that the Tesseract had abused, warping and twisting under its own power. Not even bearing its power in her had abated it. In fact, the fury only grew ever deeper as she considered what Akatosh showed her.

The whispers of the Daedra had started to fade, bleeding out of her in pieces, taking shards of her power, but leaving her spirit unburdened for the first time in a long while. She did not feel the crush of the power of them upon her.

She was small.

Mortal.

She hurt. She hurt, Divines and Daedra both, she _hurt_. She hurt so much and the pain had pulled back just far enough from her for Keshaara to do what she had done for her entire life-

“ _FUS RO DAH_!” she screamed, and the voice of storms, the dragon tongue, the power she had always possessed rattled against her ribs.

The power caught Akatosh off guard, and flung him away from her, blasting him through the building.

Keshaara tore off in the other direction, running for the side of the building and crashing through the glass. Shards cut into her skin, but she paid the extra few points of pain no more attention than she had done anything else. Pain was a constant. Akatosh reminded her of that, showing her lives she was certain she had lived before, lives of love and lives of loneliness and lives of pain and agony.

She was a creature of pain.

She fell the long way back down to the ground, landing heavily on her feet and springing forward into a roll.

It wasn’t quite enough to avoid shattering one of her legs, but Keshaara accepted that pain too, turning and looking up to the building she had just come from, ready and waiting for Akatosh to come for her again.

If this was going to be the end, if there was no more Sovengarde, no further anything for her than this fight, right now, before she was dragged back into the hellish infinity of the Cycle Akatosh loved so keenly, then the pain didn’t matter.

She shoved her pain to the side, burying it down deep in the hundreds of graves she carried in her chest.

Without her death, Akatosh would not be given the souls again. He would not have the dragons –

She blinked.

The dragons.

Keshaara turned and looked up, judging the distance from where she was standing to the top of the building. In her mind, she forced herself to remember those moments of falling, falling falling, when she had dove off the bridge for Loki. She had fallen for him so much earlier than that, but that was the time she had leapt for him. Uncaring of what could be waiting for  her.

Now.

Now she knew what waited for her and she was going to make her choice, one way or another. She needed to get to the top of the building. She could make things work from there

Akatosh hit her from behind, tackling her to the ground with the full force of his weight, and dragged her down against the ground. She cried out as the ground scraped away skin, all the way down to bone. Akatosh recovered first, his weight suddenly gone from her back, and Keshaara struggled to get an arm underneath her and prop herself up.

Akatosh’s foot caught her ribs in a savage kick, knocking her onto her back. She gasped, feeling a rib give way and snap. She crumpled on the ground, clutching her side, gasping for air that wouldn’t come in the proper amounts. Stunned for a moment, she stayed flat on the ground, bleeding, shivering trying to get her mind to focus.

* * *

She was bleeding out on the altar of the Greybeards, clutching a gut wound, bleeding out in a ring of men, who stood over her chanting, one of them clutching a knife too sharp, edged in obsidian. They had been trying to sterilize her, to end the chance that she could bear further dovah-born beings.

The thoughts of being denied a family – the one thing she had lost already, and thought she could regain, remake, work around – had been too much. She had struggled, but they had held her down with a shout.

Her hips had bucked at the wrong moment, and the knife had sliced deep into her gut.

She was bleeding out.

Bleeding.

Her hands came up to clutch at the wound. No one helped her.

No one helped her.

Her fingers went cold, she started choking on her own breath, trying to press her hands against the wounds, half-formed healing magic flickering at her fingertips. She hadn’t learned healing magic. She didn’t know what she was doing, but she had enough skill to start trying to heal herself.

But it wasn’t enough.

They watched her die.

* * *

Keshaara _screamed_ into the concrete, the pain focusing back into her body. She got her arm underneath her and pushed herself to her feet. She could feel more of her armor sloughing off as she got herself propped up to her arms and knees. Her body shook, and she cursed into her arm, trying to get herself ready to get up.

She heard the crunch of footsteps behind her, and without thinking, she reached for the one magic she had always known. Fire roared around her, searing the edges of her skin, charring the raw flesh, cauterizing the wounds closed. Akatosh screamed, and stumbled away from her.

Keshaara rolled to her back, wincing and gasping as her rib scraped against itself, the break deepening and hurting her even as she just tried to get to her feet again.

“Why are you _doing_ this, Akatosh. Kill me! Just _kill me_!” she screamed, standing up on her one good leg.

Akatosh shook his head, burns flaking away to reveal smooth black scales beneath his skin. He glared at her.

“You don’t understand,” he snarled.

Keshaara’s fury tore its way out of her throat, and the world around her was fire all over again. His response was a roar of his own, and the glass up and down the street shattered, crashing to the ground. Dully, in the background, Keshaara was aware of others screaming, of alarms and chaos being wreaked by their power, but she did not have the time to try and allow herself any sort of thought over whether or not that was good or bad.

She threw a hasty shield –spell over her head, crouching down underneath it as huge panes of glass rained down on them both.

Her magic was weakened, flickering at the edges as she worked harder than she had had to in a long, long while, to maintain something as simple as a shield. But she held. Against the sensation of claws tearing at her magicka from inside, against the onslaught of deadly glass, against the realization that she was half-armored, and had no strength to reach for her heavy steel, wherever it could be.

The glass stopped falling and with a sharp sigh, Keshaara let the magic fall away from the shield. Her arm dropped to her side, the other still and unmoving, hanging limply from her gored shoulder socket. All of her weight was put onto one leg, the other shattered from ankle to knee, and there were a dozen long gashes across her skin from glass shards already. Some of her skin was charred, flaking off of her body where fire had killed it.

She stared at Akatosh, who stood apart from her. Out of her range, she had no other weapons than her magic and her voice, and with her leg so grievously injured, she could not advance on him.

He knew that. He had to know that. It had been like this before.

Back after…

Back when…

* * *

The left side of her face was fire, and she felt the fluid of her ruined eye running in with the blood that flowed freely down her face and neck. She could not see out of that eye – she would never see out of that eye again.

Hunched down, her axe in hand, her armor in place, heavy on her skin, and the scent of a dozen hunts on her skin, Keshaara stared down Alduin.

The dragon did not look as she did, nothing looked as she did. She stood, mortal and living, in the realm of Sovengarde, having seen and met the heroes who she had only ever heard stories of. She was mortal and she stood against the First of Creation, a dragon without match, without equal. Her body ached, the tiredness that dogged her went further than bone deep, went further than exhaustion.

She stood, living, in the land of the dead.

And every moment she stood there, she became more as the land she was in. This fight was taxing them both, pulling life energy freely from the both of them to feed the power that held Sovengarde in place. Keshaara could feel the press of ages against the back of her neck, the slide of a hundred dragon souls in her chest slowly being bled away to preserve her soul in their stead.

But she did not have forever.

Eventually, she would fall. This battle could not last forever. Alduin and her both knew what would happen if they stayed overlong.

His tail whipped out, closing distances she could never hope to close in enough time to make an actual attack against him, and caught her in the chest. She flew across the battlefield, flung like a doll.

The ground of Sovengarde did nothing to soften her landing, and with a ragged sob, Keshaara rolled to her feet and charged.

There was nothing that could be changed. She knew the doom was upon her. She knew this fight was over, that she had lost. She was not strong enough, not by leaps and bounds, she was not strong enough to kill Alduin.

But as her axe struck true, as it bit into his flesh and scales, as it made him bleed his own life out into Sovengarde, Keshaara knew that she could make him hurt for every inch further he wanted to go. She could make him bleed for what he wanted to do to her friends, to her family. She could make him regret it, make him know that she, weak she may be, was still strong enough to battle back.

Her blood slicked her hand, but she did not lose her axe.

She fought.

Alduin’s claws ripped away her chestplate, leaving her vulnerable to further attacks, leaving her open to be disemboweled and left like some sort of altar sacrifice.

She fought.

His fire scorched the air, burned her lungs, made every gasp for air agony. She could smell her own flesh burning, for Sovengarde cared not that she was dragon-souled, only that her mortal form, her failing body, could burn.

She fought.

The souls of all the dragons she had battled and fought against leaked out of her in pieces, weakening her thu’ums, taking them far and further from her ability to use. She was no longer the master of the dovah-tongue. She was a mortal woman, battling far and further from where she belonged, against the First of Creation. She weakened, her body failing in parts as she and Alduin battled.

She fought.

She fought, she fought, she fought.

Indomitable was her will, though her body may fail her.

Unshakeable was her duty, though all that had happened had brought her nothing but pain.

Implacable was her snarl, despite the growing seed of cold in her chest.

Death was upon her, but she fought and raged and battled anyway.

If she were to die, in the realm of Death, with the uncertainty of where her soul would go, if she would find rest, if the world would be at peace with Alduin defeated, then she would die with the battle’s glorious song rattling in her chest.

Dragon’s blood, dragon’s fire, and the screams of them both shook all of Nirn, all of Mundus, and for a moment, a brief and glorious moment, she shone as bright as any of the stars in the night sky, she demanded the beauty and brilliance of the Divine and Daedra themselves as _she_ , _herself_ took for her what others had sought to deny her.

Her destiny was in her hands. She fought.

Her axe fell from nerveless fingers. Her knees dropped to the less than solid ground. Alduin’s great body sagged down next to her, a hundred savage cuts draining his life as hers now drained from her.

There were no more dragons in her soul. Just a mortal, using borrowed time, as she and the great dragon, First of Creation breathed their last.

She stared at him, his great yellow eyes wide with wonder and the secrets of the realms, of everything that has been and would be. He stared back, looking through the very soul-stuff of this one, small, indomitable woman. Her orange eyes danced with the vibrancy of mortality, dulling now as her life drained from her once-and-always body. They had had this same fight so many times. It had ended here, or there, or in the future for her. This same battle had played out, and played out, and played out. She…

His tail curled around her, his wing shielded her from the brightening lights of Sovengard. He lay his head at her feet, and waited.

She died, her last breath frozen but for a moment before her soul took shape in the breath. Alduin breathed his soul into hers, and the world went dark.

 


	31. Breathe

She took a deep breath, trying to stabilize herself. Everything hurt. Keshaara opened her eyes. She wasn’t wearing armor. The Daedra had gone from her. She felt like she had not felt in…centuries. The air in her lungs was new, untainted with any magic or power from Tamriel. She was alone.

So alone.

Keshaara blinked the spots out of her eyes, and looked up. Akatosh was standing there, his eyes still on her, colors dancing in his irises in every shade that existed in all of Mundus. She couldn’t take her eyes off of him. So much had been pain for her, and he was the…most beautiful being of all of Mundus.

She swallowed the lump in her throat, tears starting at the corners of her eyes. Everything had been a battle for so long, and even when it hadn’t been an outright fight, it had still hurt. All of her life had been pain. A long, constant fight, that even when it had been sweet, it had still hurt. Everything had hurt. She had always hurt. There was no timeline, no existence, no rhythm of the Cycle that had ever been kind to her. The more Akatosh showed her, the more her heart dragged at her.

She was a woman in a young body with ages of wisdom carved through her body. Struggling to her feet, Keshaara found herself balancing unsteadily, rocked by the feeling and weight of the whole world on her shoulders. A sob ripped out of her chest, the precursor to a wail that she bit back behind her teeth. She might be hurt, aching and bleeding under layers and layers and layers of pain, but her pride demanded that no one see that part of her hurt.

“Dovahkiin, you have hurt so much. We don’t have to fight.”

Akatosh’s voice was honeyed wine in her ears, and she sagged. His hands came up to grab her shoulders, wrapping gently around her upper arms, holding her steady.

His strength flowed into her, a soothing reminder of what it was to feel strong, and self-assured her actions.

She leaned in to his touch, her eyes drifting closed once again.

* * *

She had ruled, once. The crown had fit her better than it had ever fit Elisif. She had taken it the same way Ulfric had killed her husband. They sang of her, she drove the Thalmor from all of Skyrim. She was beautiful, and terrible, and beautiful again. Her fury was that of the dragons she bore in her blood, and she rode, unafraid, into battle.

Her reign was long and prosperous, and longer still. She ascended to the title of archmage, she took all the power that needed to have a hand on the reins, and consolidated it all under her banner. She was an impossibility, they said, not when they ever thought she could hear her, of course. But they called her that anyway. Whispered that there was no possibility that she could be what she was, and do what she did.

But impossible or no, it was what Keshaara was.

She dressed in fine fabrics, but did not adorn herself with gems or precious metals. She wore her clothing simply, wanting only what was best for warmth, and safety. She prided herself on her delicate touch when it came to indulging herself in the monetary benefits of her station. Sure, she had access to things that no common person would have ever the chance to see or feel.

But she wasn’t arrogant about it. She earned all of this.

Every septim in her coffers, every fine circlet, every bolt of fabric, every artifact, all of it was hers and hers alone. She earned it with blood and sweat and tears and fear. She was Dovahkiin, and when Alduin came for her, it was a foregone conclusion that she was already going to win.

Victory was sweet, as sweet as it ever was, and she earned it with blood and fire. It was a victory that she _deserved_.

She was Dovahkiin.

Queen.

Draped in gold, with Courage unending, she lived her life with glory and finesse.

She lacked for nothing. Nothing at all.

Her nights were not haunted with the green eyes. No, she did not think of bronze and green and black, of pale hands on her waist.

She lived alone, never took a consort. She was a Queen, after all, and she needed no King. No matter the endless, lonely nights, when her body ached for another beside her, when she swore she could taste the breath of cold on her tongue, on her body, at her core, she swore she could hear her name whispered, ( _Yuvonjunniahkrin_ ) it said, reverence dripping off of every syllable. He said her name – he said her _name_ in a way no one ever could.

She definitely did not wake up thinking about it.

She did not think anything about it. Nothing. She woke up and she went about her day, and she never thought much of the fact that no one ever really seemed to match up to the person who she saw in her dreams. No one ever said her name like that. No one even _knew_ that name of hers. She had told no one, ever. But the dreams…in the dreams…in the dreams she had someone. Someone who adored her.

Her people adored her, true, but this was different. In her dreams, it was different. Raven-black hair spread out on her pillow beside her and she smelled juniper whenever she thought too much of him. He didn’t exist. He was some daedric being. Some dream of the Aedra or of Dibella sent to haunt her dreams in revenge for whatever she had done in upsetting the balance.

The Daedra and Aedra both had left her alone ever since she had defeated Alduin. She had lived for a long, long while. She had conquered and made her country prosper. She was a good leader – a great one.

And she could deal with these dreams that she definitely wasn’t having about a man who didn’t exist and wasn’t hers and had never been a part of Skyrim, even if he knew her name that she had never told another being.

She looked forward to sleep, but she never would admit that. She enjoyed the attention, the half-there thoughts. The things that weren’t happening.

It wasn’t like that.

Keshaara was aged, wise and glorious. She was the Queen, the leader of a Dynasty unending. With Alduin’s soul in her, her age was extended far beyond what anyone could have otherwise expected. But she was a fine ruler, and no one said otherwise. No one cared to correct her, because she was –

She was –

* * *

Shuddering, Keshaara turned her head away from Akatosh. The vision bled away, but still glimmered at the edges of her vision. There were tears in her eyes that she struggled to blink away.

Her blood thundered in her ears, and her heart beat hard against her ribs. Every vision had been the same.

In a way. Not specifically the same as each other, but with every one of them, more of what she had been made to become bled away. There was no Daedric or Aedric influence in her anymore. So much had been taken from her. Both in this life, and in all the lives that had preceded it. She was made of a thousand losses, each more terrible and painful. Her lives had been glorious, or terrible, or somewhere in between.

But in every one of them she had…

“Do not think of it. Quiet your heart, Dovahkiin. All of this will be behind you. This wasn’t what was supposed to happen. None of this, I promise you.”

His words muffled the world around her, and Keshaara’s body felt heavier with every word out of his mouth. She sagged against his hands, leaning into him. He spoke, and her pain seeped away from her. She could feel the blood still dripping from the dozens of wounds that had broken her body.

Her leg hurt from the hip down, shattered bone grinding against shards of itself. But the pain was removed from her, coming from a place far away from where she was. Her head lolled, and Akatosh supported it with his shoulder.

She forgot.

Drifting and pulled on tides far stronger than a single mortal could ever hope to stand against, Keshaara felt the characteristic tug of the souls in her chest, the great many that had been forged into one slowly unraveling. She did not have to try and open her eyes to know that her left eye was torn open again. Her left arm ached. She felt the missing fingers when she made a halfhearted attempt to curl her hands to fight back.

Her other leg felt weak. She knew the old wound there was back too. Her tattoos burned like fire, etching themselves back into her flesh. They had been memories, once. There had been reasons for all of them. Reasons…she had had reasons for the tattoos. She had gotten these wounds somewhere…

They had been taken away from her.

Somewhere.

Somehow.

It didn’t make any sense.

Where was she?

Lifting her head from Akatosh’s shoulder felt harder than anything else she had ever done. Nothing compared to this. She had gone drinking with Vilkas and Farkas the week before and ended up sharing her bed with them both. The hangover the next day had kept all three of them under the covers and moving slowly against each other. She had decided to marry Farkas that night. She had the amulet of Mara in her…

_no._

She had already married Farkas. She and he, and their friends – they had all come to Riften. Eaten sweetcakes. Said the words. Their marriage was blessed even if she couldn’t have children, it had still happened. Vilkas had not come around since she had made her choice, though whenever she visited with the rest of the Companions, he hovered nearby, watching her intently.

That was right.

She had married Farkas.

 _something else_.

Her head came up.

She was standing in Skyrim. The field of their final battle. Fire still hung in the air, huge gouges scored the ground. She smelled ozone. Leftover lightning crackled across spiderwebs of frost. They had just been fighting. Her eye wept blood, and half of her line of sight was gone.

Slowly, she turned her head to look at Akatosh. It was Akatosh. She had killed Alduin. That was what this was about. She had freed Alduin’s soul and Akatosh had come back. It was right and proper. She had done her duty. Everything in her was done. Tired, exhausted, battle-weary.

Bone-tired.

Akatosh’s arm  wrapped around her waist, and he was careful to support her weight.

“The fight is over, brave Dovahkiin. Rest now.”

The world shuddered, fuzzing out around the edges. She looked at it, knowing that that meant something – _something_ – important was wrong with that.

There was a hush in the air, like the crush of snowfall still falling, muffling the sounds of the world, leaving her standing in his arms, only aware of Akatosh. Nothing else. He was warm, warmer than she could ever hope to be, heated internally by the fires the dragons possessed. Akatosh was everything she could never hope to be, and…and…

_this isn’t right._

She tried to pull away, confused. Something nagged at her, some secondary voice pulling at her.

“No, none of that, it’s all over, Dovahkiin. Hush, quiet yourself. This is where it was going to end. You have done well. So well. No one could fault you for being tired.”

His words pushed the other thoughts away, swaddling her in the comfort of a job well done, and Keshaara lost herself in the relaxation. Not since she had last been with her family –

 _they died before she came into skyrim, they’re gone, remember that_.

\- had she felt so at ease. The world was no longer resting squarely upon her shoulders. She could take a breath, she could relax, she could return home and be at ease. She could sleep. She could relax. There was nothing else the world would need from her. She was done.

“Come, to sleep, to rest, Dovahkiin.”

She leaned against him, and exhaled.

* * *

Keshaara’s body sagged to the ground, her soul leaking from her body, trailing up like iridescent smoke.

Blood pooled around her body.


	32. Please, Breathe

The world was screaming. Chaos ruled the streets around the Avengers. They were consumed with rushing to the aid of civilians, pulling them away from collapsing buildings, hustling them out of the danger zone. On occasion, Tony had to stop and go so far as to even blast buildings that were going to fall to the side to keep them from collapsing on the evacuation lines. All of them worked to try and keep the people of the city _safe_. Even with Jarvis constantly updating them on what Keshaara and the…other one were doing, it seemed the destruction being wreaked had little, if anything, to do with their actual actions.

This was more like…ripples, expanding outwards from where the two of them clashed. The mitigation was as far as they could go. They had only attempted to intervene, but whenever they tried to get close the magic that the Keshaara and the other, they had been rebuked. Between the magic they were flinging and the power was more than convincing enough to keep the Avengers away.

There was only one enemy, and all of them could be better used with getting the civilians to safety. Of course, they all kept their own eyes on the battle as best they could. The air was choked with dust, plumes of ash and gouts of fire bursting out from broken gas lines.

Glass shattered, buildings sagged, and the Avengers tried to save everyone they could.

The city had gone through emergencies before, they had been attacked, and multiple fights had been fought in the streets. The tourists knew what could happen, and even they were quick to form into orderly lines and follow the evacuation routes. That, at least, made their work easier.

But the Avengers were still preoccupied with it all. The damage was predictable, thanks to Jarvis’s constant talking in their ears, guiding them around.

Thor was deflecting magic away from buildings and people, as Mjolnir and Tony’s suit were probably the only things capable of withstanding the tailings of the magical powers that ripped through the area. Thor, flying through the air, would catch the occasional sight of Keshaara and the other one fighting. It did not look like she was winning. He knew he could not help.

She probably would not have wanted his help anyway. She had never been keen on him. Not since…not ever. Not ever had she looked upon him kindly. Perhaps it had been because of how she and Loki had spent time in Sky’s Rim, perhaps he had never put the effort in. But she fought like a dervish, regardless. Spitting mad and probably _actually_ mad, she fought.

Thor watched when he was not preoccupied too heavily with something else. She was stunning. Blood-drenched and battling. Despite the blood and the egregious wounds that would have given even him pause, Keshaara fought. Her seiðr and that of her opponent seemed evenly matched, arcing and blasting the air between them.

Thor had seen his mother do battle before, watched her slender fingers work the high seiðr that was befitting a woman of her rank. This was not like that. This fight in seiðr was brutal, as heavy-hitting as any battle with mjolnir and the rest of the Warriors Three had ever been.

She was not wearing the armor he had grown accustomed to seeing her in. She was not wearing the armor she had threatened him in, the one that was gold and grey and orange. She was wearing some sort of armor that was black and jagged and tearing away as the battle continued. He saw the man she was battling tear away pieces of what she had worn, crushing the armor into dust in his hands.

Thor watched her as best he could, uncertain if he should jump in and help, even if she did not want his assistance, there was something that seemed so terribly unbalanced about the fight that was happening.

Then he saw Keshaara deflect a magical bolt wide, her hand coming up to brush the magic away as if it meant nothing, and where the seiðr hit the skyscraper next to her, it ate a hole nearly completely through the entirety of the building. He flew higher up when he saw that, comprehending all at once, just what sort of power it was that Keshaara wielded. She had turned a magic like _that_ aside, and then still gotten up and kept fighting.

He had seen seiðr at work before, watched his mother weave brilliant tapestries of light, Hells, he had even watched Keshaara duel before and this was still on a completely different level. Seiðr was something he had no real experience with, he had never researched it, never really paid attention to in the way Loki had, but this was beyond the pale. This was…

Mjolnir hummed in his hand, gaining weight all at once in his hands. Thor dropped down a half dozen feet. He looked at his hammer, confused. It was not that he was unworthy, it could not be that. Something else was afoot.

Keshaara had lifted the hammer once.

He could call Mjolnir to his aid, and sometimes, Mjolnir would come to him if he needed her, regardless of whether or not he called her specifically. Keshaara…needed help. Mjolnir could help, but if she had it, he could not help anyone else. She was fighting, and perhaps losing, but there was little he could do that would help them both survive the night.

Thor turned away from her battle. He had people to save.

He touched down next to Natasha, who was busily checking off lists and names and waving people through to their shelter stations. She and Barton usually handled this in emergencies that did not require the entirety of the Avengers to battle. Seeing as this was mostly just dealing with the catastrophe around a fight they were not yet involved in, she was more than comfortable staying here and handling that.

He did not want to disrupt her work, and the moment of quietude, away from the rampaging magic helped him think.

This thing happening with Keshaara concerned him deeply. He had seen what she was capable of once, when her destructive capabilities had run amok in Asgard. This was completely unlike that day. The destruction was contained within only a half dozen blocks or so, and when the two of them moved, it was pretty predictable, especially with Jarvis helping.

The sounds of their battle grew to a crescendo, glass shrieking and metal groaning. Thor saw more than a few of the assorted humans flinch at the sound. He, more accustomed to these sorts of sounds in battle, did not such thing. Thor did turn his attention back to where Keshaara had been, just in time to see a flash of green vanish around the corner.

Confused, Thor blinked, following after the sight instinctively. It couldn’t be. Not him. He died. He had left his brothers body behind and that had been the last time he had seen that particular shade of green.

The sounds of magic and battle died out suddenly.

There was a great sigh, like a thousand last breaths rattling out all at once…then there was nothing but silence.

And then there was a scream.

He ran.

* * *

He had seen how she consumed souls, back in Skyrim. Watched her breathe a dragon’s soul into hers. He had watched her, bruised, bleeding, broken, still stand, still get up. But her body had only looked so limp and broken when Durnehviir had taken her from him to run her still-warm body to the Soul Forges to save her.

This was not…

It was not happening.

No, not after everything he had done, he wasn’t too late. He couldn’t be too late.

The scream had ripped out of his throat before he could consider holding it in. He was already halfway through the field of battle, rushing to her, before he could even think about the danger. Not her, not her, not after everything he had done to prevent this.

The man – the _dragon_ who stood over her did not stop him from approaching.

Loki knelt over Keshaara’s body, his hand shaking, trying to press his hands into the wounds that seeped blood. There was no pulse beneath her skin. The heat he knew, the heat he expected, the heat that had burned him in nights that left him aching for the want of it…was cooling even as his hands frantically worked healing magic over her.

He had never really had any need to practice the sort of healing he had seen Keshaara do in the past. There had always been someone else, someon  who knew more, and his own meager healing skills had never been particularly useful, excepting in small circumstance. He couldn’t get the wounds to close. He knew that.

“Kesh, come on, come on, stay with me, come on,” he screamed, shaking her, knowing it was not going to do anything.

Her eyes were open, the myriad of color that had once danced in their depths had cooled and stilled. She was gone. Her body was limp in his arms. She felt so _small_ again. So small. Tears pricked at the corners of his own eyes as he looked down at her. It wasn’t supposed to end like this. After everything he had been through, not like this.

He pulled her body halfway into his lap, still muttering her name, trying to rectify what he saw with how broken his heart was.

“You should have never loved her,” the dragon said dispassionately, staring down at him, still wearing the face of a human. “None of this would have happened if you had never loved her.”

Loki stared at the dragon-man. He wanted to fight, to rage and _destroy_. But then Keshaara’s body would be left alone in the rubble of this unfamiliar city of mortals. He clutched her broken body tighter to his chest, trying to keep it from the dragon-man’s touch. All of his words got stuck in his chest as they battled for dominance in his throat.

“How you managed to even come to my Realm, I do not know. But had you not, had you let this whole thing just _happen_ instead of interfering…oh, this would have been so much easier. But it is done now.”

Akatosh stared down at Loki, and Loki did not care to look too deeply in the feelings that it roused in him. Keshaara’s face was ruined, the long scar he had seen but a few times now fresh once again, and she was wearing no armor. Glass was lodged in her flesh, and her leg was horrifically mangled. How she had gotten here, he did not know. How she had done anything while looking as she did, as injured as she was, he could not fathom.

The destruction all around made it seem like a battle had raged and raged, and raged, but she was laying on the ground, blood staining the concrete around them both. No armor, which was completely incomprehensible. Loki had watched her pull armor out of nothingness and now…she was wearing the clothes of the Midgardians.

Her body slid out of his lap. Loki quickly gathered her back up into his arms, trying to support her as best he could while still paying attention to Akatosh’s movements.

Once, his vambraces had been stained with the sweetest juices of her passion. Now, it was her blood.

Last time that had been true, there had been Soul Forges…there had been contingency plans. He hadn’t known of them but they had existed. There wasn’t anything. There couldn’t be anything. There was no one here for her. Just him.

And he was too late.

“Have you done anything to deserve her? How can you sit there and mourn her like you have any idea what she is - who she is?”

He tightened his grip on her body, staring up at the dragon-man. He wanted to rage and burn and _hurt_ this man, but…Keshaara’s body was still cooling in his arms. He was not going to leave her alone, even to kill the one responsible. She deserved better than that.

“You don’t even know her  _name_ , how could you-”

 _§call them_ §

Loki flinched. The voice of Sheograth had whispered in his ear, quietly, fear touching his voice. He kept his face still. This was Akatosh. The names of dragons had power. That was how he brought Keshaara here, that was how this whole part of the story had begun. She had been in Skyrim, and if he had not called her, she would still have been there.

He had called her by name and she had come. She had come for him, because he had asked. He dropped his head down, looking at her broken body, trying to justify what he saw with what had been before. He remembered how much it had _hurt_ to call her to his side. And she had never been clear on whether or not the dragon-call would be able to pull someone back from beyond the veil of death.

And he did not know if he could try, especially with her soul locked away somewhere deep inside Akatosh’s chest.

But there were others. She had called them, once. Taking them from Skyrim, gaining herself two allies at her most vulnerable moment, and he had never thought to ask why she had called them. When the Tesseract had taken her, she had called the remaining dragons of Skyrim, and filled the air with wingbeats and words of power unlike any the Nine Realms had ever heard.

First, however, she had called them. And they had not left.

He stared down at Keshaara’s dead body, and he knew that he would have only one chance. This was not like the prisons underneath his family’s palace, where he had privacy enough to make an attempt or two before anyone could catch on to what he was doing.

Not so with Akatosh. He would know immediately. Akatosh was of the place where that magic was known, even commonplace. He had one chance.

Who to call, then?

“-how could you ever hope to say you ever loved her if you did not know that truth of her? She is – and forever will be.”

Loki lifted Keshaara’s body so he could bury his face in her neck. It was a way to buy time. A way to buy time.

She still smelled like ash and fire, spice and leather. She smelled like _home._

And blood. And death.

 _§call_ §

Remembering the names of the dragons was hard when his love was in his arms, body cooling, and limp. He knew she had said their names, had commanded them, called them, but recalling them in the moment was hard. Especially when Akatosh still standing over him, muttering dark words as he waited for Loki to be done with Keshaara’s body.

“- you really can’t understand it. The Cycles must be maintained, all of them must continue, there is so much at stake. You could never come close to comprehending just what I need of her, why this is important, and how, spectacularly, you have failed, and how much you have set this all back.”

Loki pressed his face further into her neck, and took one last, steadying breath. If Akatosh did not know how it was that Keshaara had come to Asgard, he was about to find out. That, or Loki was about to die anyway.

“ _DURNEHVIIR_.”

Unlike _her_ name, Durnehviir’s had slid easily out of his mouth. It did not burn, or make him bleed as hers had done. He did not know the difference in names, did not know what sort of power was involved, he only knew what little of the draconic language Keshaara had written in her own hand, and none of what fueled the power. Myths and legends were one thing, but an

But Akatosh took a step away from him, a curse in the language of the dwemer on his lips. Loki looked up, his mouth tasting of ash and bone dust. Victory trilled in his chest, for it may be only a small one, but it was an important one nonetheless. He had done it. Again.

Keshaara’s calling had been harsh, an overwhelming abuse of power that had left him reeling for hours after. He had tasted the power of her name and nearly lost his voice for it.

By contrast, Durnehviir’s name had come smoothly from his mouth. But the power was still there. It rumbled in the air, and out of nothingness, Durnehviir stepped through, confused for only a moment, until he saw Akatosh standing over Loki and Keshaara’s body. The silver-eyed dragon-man roared. His teeth were long, hooked, and wickedly sharp.

“Loki! _Viingkreinvokun!_!” he shouted, already pulling his magic around him in preparation for battle, and defense.

Akatosh growled at him, turning on the other dragon-made-man with a snarl.

“You call her another name?! You dare grace her with names of honor? Do you _know_ what she is?” Akatosh screamed, his attention tearing away from Loki and Keshaara’s body.

Loki watched as the two of them measured themselves up against each other, their own power filling the air, sending waves of power shimmering and distorting the air. With Akatosh distracted with Durnehviir, Loki figured he could try for one more before anything really started happening.

“ODAHVIING!” he shouted, emboldened, even as Akatosh whipped his head back towards Loki.

Within moments, Odahviing was stepping through a similar portal as Durnehviir. Akatosh stared at Loki, mouth agape. Odahviing required no preparation. He was ready, wearing no armor, but bearing a sword that Loki could recognize as Asgardian work. He had been surprised to learn that one of the dragons had chosen to remain in Asgard, while the other went to Helheim, but seeing them both stand there, prepared to defend Keshaara’s body…and Loki, made a chill run up his spine.

The dragons, at least, had expected something like this. They knew that this could happen. Why Keshaara had never known, why they had not simply returned home, why any of this was possible, why they seemed prepared as soon as they saw Akatosh, Loki did not know. But they were. They were and he had called them as he had called Keshaara.

“You-” Akatosh started, his words failing him all at once.

“ _Viingkreinvokun_!” Odahviing shouted, running towards Loki.

Akatosh lifted a hand, and Odahviing stopped in his tracks, running flat into an invisible wall. Loki flinched, pulling his head away from the suddenly loud magic. The three dragons faced off  with each other. Loki was reminded of the battle between Paarthunax and Durnehviir and Odahviing. The three of them had all dueled to a solid draw until Keshaara had come in and turned the tides all at once.

But now…Keshaara was dead.

And the three of the dragons fought.

He had not seen how Keshaara’s battle with Akatosh had gone. He did not know too much about how the battles like this should look, but even just as an observer, cradling the dead and cooling body of the woman he loved, he realized that this was still…beyond him.

The magic ricocheted around the small area, and he watched with awe and terror as they battled. None of them fell into their draconic forms, each keeping to whatever vague facsimile of humanity they had been granted. They screamed words of power at each other, shattering glass, rending concrete and asphalt, and Loki watched.

Keshaara’s body was nearly cold to the touch.

The fight was happening around him, and now, without the focus of Akatosh on him, Loki felt his heart break. Well and truly break. There was no danger to him, not right then. And he could feel.

The tears came again, hot and painful. He did not stop them, this time. They fell, and he was not ashamed of them. Keshaara was dead. Everything he had done to come back to her, the sacrifices he had made, the schemes he had plotted through, all of it was supposed to culminate in glory, not…not this. This was not the ending he had thought would come to pass when he planned it all out.

He had wanted to come back to her, fists full of glory.

Instead. Again. Loki never learned his lessons. He should have known that this was not going to work as he wanted it to. Nothing he ever planned went the way he wanted it to.

But never, not even in his wildest imaginings did he think that he would be kneeling in Keshaara’s blood on Midgard as three dragon-men threw power strong enough to shape and unmake worlds around them. It seemed like this was _normal_ for them, to trade power back and forth, deflecting and absorbing magic between one breath and the next.

Loki wanted to watch, he knew something like this would never truly come to pass again and he should take this time to learn the meanings of the magic around him, but…but…

He keened, long and loud, a broken sound ripping out from his chest. The sounds of the dragons battling nearly drowned him out, muting his sorrow.

The emotions that rose up in his chest were all at once, too much. Overwhelmed by the intensity of it, he let the emotions ride him hard. They, all of them, demanded to be felt all at once. With the battle not focused on him, with nothing but Keshaara’s quickly cooling body to occupy him, Loki felt _everything._

Rage: because he had come so close to finishing his work, only to be stopped mere weeks before it was actually done, and then lost everything he had tried to protect in one fell swoop. He should have been left alone, this should have never happened, Akatosh should have waited for him to be prepared so that he was _here_ with her, instead of just moments too late.

Sorrow: because she was dead. After everything he had done, everything he had fought for, everything that the two of them had been through to try and be together, the ups and downs of their adventures. He had wanted to do so much with her. He had thought he had already lost her once and that had been horrific enough. He thought she had been maimed before and had dedicated himself to being there for her, whatever that had meant. Being parted from her had been, and still was, simply not an option. But she was dead.

She was _dead_.

Hatred: of the dragons, of the situation, of the buildings of Midgard, of the very existence of Midgard itself, of the history that had been forced on Keshaara, the madness that dogged her every step ever since she had sent him back into the prisons of Asgard. It had not been that long since he was in Skyrim, not as far as compared to the rest of his life and it was not fair that he had found something so beautiful in Keshaara, only to have it taken from him. He deserved something better than this. Better than losing what he wanted more than anything else. He deserved _better_ and he hated that he was _again_ at a loss when it came to getting what he wanted from his life.

And more and more and more besides that. All at once, and all together, Loki let all the feelings overwhelm him.

He screamed her name, over and over again, rocking back and forth, pulling her limp body along with him.

It was not fair.

This was not _fair_.

She was _gone_.

The necklace he wore around his neck felt heavy, heavier than it had in the entire time he wore it. At first, he ignored it, too consumed with his own sorrow to really notice.

Until the weight got to the point where he _had_ to take notice of it.

Then, he looked down, his eyes skimming past the egregious wounds that lanced across her body, to where the pendant he had worn ever since Keshaara had been taken to Jotunheim hung beneath his clothing.

Many things happened at once.

There where the pendant hung, a deep purple light pulsed, glowing bright and brighter until it hurt to even look at.

Loki’s eyes widened.

And, from across the field of battle…

“ _LOKI?!_ ”

He looked up, into his brother’s eyes as the three dragons fought. Thor was confused, he understood that much. This was not what he had wanted for any of this.

In his arms, Keshaara’s body was still.


	33. Gasp

Loki, face streaked with tears, and heart still pounding in his chest, looked across the battlefield and saw his brother. Thor stared, open-mouthed, hand slack on Mjolnir.

“ _LOKI?!_ ” he shouted again, disbelief coloring his voice.

The dragons paid them all no mind, consumed with their battle. Loki made to stand up, shock overriding the rest of his better sensibilities. He had thought that nothing further could go awry in his plans, considering that so far, he had been called to come by a voice of a God of Madness, cradled the cooling body of his dead lover, and been left with a dozen plans up in the air that were all going to come crashing down, bringing doom with them, in all their iterations.

And now, his brother was here.

He would laugh if he was not so goddamn sad.

Keshaara’s body in his arms was cold and he wanted nothing but to have her back. The pendant on his neck pulsed even brighter, a purple mist emanating from the talisman she had given him. Loki dropped his attention to that, startled again that so much had happened all at once.

The dragons paused their battle, alerted to some sort of change that Loki could not sense, himself. All three of them turned and stared at Loki. Durnehviir and Odahviing’s eyes lit up with something that could very easily be misconstrued as hope. Akatosh…well his lips moved around words that made Loki’s ears bleed. There wasn’t even a pop of pressure, or pain.

They just started bleeding.

Sound cut out.

In his arms, Keshaara’s body… _burned_.

He looked down to her, and watched her chest rise, and fall.

The world shook around him, trembling. He thought, he thought he could hear words, or the rumblings of them. Something terrible, something awful, something awesome was happening.

He breathed, and was shocked to see the silvery iridescence of a soul escape from his mouth and dart down into hers. Keshaara shifted, struggling weakly against his arms. A blast of power caught him in the chest, knocking him backwards, away from Keshaara. He skidded across the ground on his back, a hole the size of his fist burned through the chestplate of his armor.

Shocked, he reached up to the hole, expecting pain to come, expecting quite a few things, but not expecting to feel a jagged edge to his armor, and…then whole flesh, and the talisman Keshaara had given him red-hot against his fingers.

He swallowed the knot in his throat, and looked up, back towards the dragons.

In front of him, holding a hand against the gaping wound in her side, stood Keshaara.

Loki watched the dragon-men speak, unable to keep up with the rhythm of their words, and reading their lips only got him so far. He knew the words, but the translations took far longer than allowed by the speed of the conversation they were having.

But Keshaara was standing, leaking blue soul-stuff into the air around her. Arcs of golden light spat across the blue, and Loki found himself incapable of calling out to her. He wanted to, save his soul, he wanted to call out to her, he wanted to tell her everything and get her attention, wanted to gather her into his arms because she was _alive_ , impossibly _alive_ once again.

He could not.

His voice was still stuck in his throat, with a dozen other words all vying for the right to be said first and she did not even look back to him. No, she stood, bleeding again, in front of him. She was struggling, leaning hard on her less-injured leg, and he could see her trembling through the exertion of it all.

No words came from his mouth and he could not hear them.

Loki tried to stand, wanting nothing more than to go to her side, support her, to lend her his strength, but his own strength failed him first. He couldn’t stand. He could only watch. His body could not stand against the raw power being brought to the fight.

But she did.

* * *

She was standing.

The impossibility of it did not bother her, and did not even really enter her mind. A thousand impossible things happened to her in her life. Impossible meant nothing. Impossible was only for those who had the blessing of no Destiny to them. She was impossible. So be it. Impossible she would be.

She had a fight to finish.

Durnehviir and Odahviing were there. She did not know how that happened. She did not care, either. They were here. Akatosh was here. There was a battle, the edges of which she stood upon now, and her body hurt. She hurt in a way she had rarely hurt before. No adrenaline numbed the edges of the pain down into something manageable, no battle-rage muffled the bone-deep ache that suffused her.

It was just her.

It was just pain.

Every blink of her eyes sent all thoughts of consciousness skittering from her mind, but she opened her eyes every time. Impossibility suited her. It suited her to stand on a ruined pair of legs, and stare with a blind eye and be all but unbothered by it. The pain was so much that it consumed itself, fading into whatever background noise she was choosing to ignore.

Visions of Loki danced at the edge of her vision. She saw him – remembered seeing him holding her as she had come to awareness. This was going to be a day she died then. The day she died. Maybe the day she died for good, and not just for a handful of moments.  She had died before and come back, but she had no faith that today would be the same. She had visions of her lost love hovering in the background of her vision.

There had been an old superstition back in Morrowind, or at least, amongst her family, that if your love died before you, you would see them again, and they would guide you to Sovengarde – they already knew the way, and a helping hand to the final resting place was a welcome sight. She saw Loki.

Loki was dead. Gone. Forever.

It had been…she had thought he could be her love, and sure, sure, Jyggalag had said he was her Alunsegein but Daedra were under no geas to tell the truth, or even pretend to tell the truth. She had not believed it, or wanted to allow herself to believe it because the idea of being so close, and then losing it had been enough to drive her to the brink of madness once. But to see Loki, and know that she was so dangerously close to the end of it all, made her think that perhaps, Jyggalag had been right.

If she just let Akatosh kill her, chose to be slightly less than absolutely perfect in her every strike, she could see him again. Loki.

Keshaara steeled herself.

This was not the time for thoughts like this. It did not matter if she could delude herself into thinking that there would be any glorious rest after this all ended. What mattered was that this was _going_ to end.

Akatosh stared at her, rage written into every part of his body. She had no energy for fury anymore. She met his gaze evenly, not flinching away from the many thousands of spinning colors that wheeled through his irises. He was the first of creation. A God.

She was but one woman. One exhausted woman with nothing left in her to give, but who would give more before it could be taken from her. There was an aching emptiness in her chest. The fullness of the overwhelming crush of power was gone. She felt like she had done once, centuries ago. Small. Not afraid, not helpless, but small nonetheless. She was so tired of so many things.

There was a battle in front of her, however. An enemy. A reason to fight.

She could not see out of her left eye, it was still ruined. Just like in the aftermath of her battle with Alduin. Even then, she had felt hollowed out and raw. She had lost so much in that fight, and she had barely found the strength to stagger back to Whiterun and her husband. She had made it, but the cost had been high and she had spent weeks after trying to bring herself back from the edge.

That had been when she had found that she was pregnant with Farhan.

The highs and lows and in-betweens of those months after she had defeated Akatosh and waited for the world to calm down had left her reeling. Everything had changed all at once, but not enough to really affect the entire world the way it had affected her. She had been so alone, even with the Companions, even with becoming the darling of the courts and feared of the courts…it had felt lonely.

But she had carried that heaviness in her chest, a cairn of souls, something she could do nothing about except suffer through. To continue to suffer as she lost everyone and faded to all but obscurity, cursed to live on. Always, to live on, with the feeling of

Now, however, there was an aching emptiness in her chest where there had once been the weight of a hundred dragon souls. She bore no Aedra or Daedra, she had no dragons wrapped around her soul. It was only her, just her and her alone. Her power had been enough to get her through plenty of bad situations in the past.

Rarely was it ever so stacked against her so harshly.

“Why won’t you stay down?” Akatosh screamed.

The world shook as he spoke, the words of power he threw around so casually enough to tear holes through reality itself. Keshaara paid him no mind, not really. This fight had already finished. She had nothing else to say, nothing else to give. There was just…this fight.

She stared at Akatosh through the only one of her eyes that still worked. There was no response she could give him that would do justice to whatever it was that she was feeling. Keshaara could only think of one reason why she kept doing what she was doing. It was not going to be an answer that satisfied Akatosh. Akatosh would not be satisfied with any sort of response from her.

He did not truly care about any answer Keshaara could give. Akatosh had already constructed a response and there was nothing she could feasibly say to change his mind. She didn’t care to change it anyway. He wanted to think a certain way. She was too tired, too broken, to argue.

Akatosh flung magic at her.

Her hands felt leaden as she brought them up to block. His power split in front of her, driven to either side of her. The ground buckled, uprooted and tossed around with no care. But nothing came close to her. She stared at Akatosh through her single good eye, daring him to continue.

He did.

Keshaara defended herself, pulling magic up out of nothing, uncertain of where all this power was coming from, but incapable of denying the necessity of what she was doing. If she did not defend herself, she would die. And she was not going to die easily, she was not going to surrender to the darkness if she could avoid it. So she fought back. Her magic was sluggish and her body felt lethargic, and slow.

But she fought.

The battle dragged on.

Keshaara stood her ground, feet planted and eyes forward. She knew what awaited her if she faltered. So she did not. She fought. She battled. She brought everything in her broken body up, every iota of strength she possessed, everything she had and then a little bit more.

There was no yawning infinity in her chest.

There was no terrible blue light clawing out of cracks in her skin.

She could not sense the magicka she had in reserve. She just _fought_. Akatosh attacked, spitting words of flame and lighting, of ice and ash, and she defended herself. Keshaara was too tired to mount a counterattack of her own, too exhausted in that bone-deep way to even think about trying such a thing. That did not stop her from defending. From protecting Odahviing and Durnehviir. From sending Akatosh’s magic high into the sky, away from anyone who was not trying to engage in the battle.

Keshaara could make herself believe she saw Loki.

She could believe that this was her final moment.

There was a lull in the battle, a moment when the air was still humming with magic, and Keshaara took a deep breath. It rattled through her lungs, aching in their fullness, and when she exhaled, she saw the soul-stuff leaking from her once again.

The world went grey at the edges, hazy and undefined. She blinked, shook her head, and steadied herself. Her leg didn’t hurt anymore, but when she looked down, her vision blurred again. Golden light flowed from her hands anyway. A greater restoration spell spilled from her without any thought. She had injured herself, and been injured. Even if she could not feel the pain, she needed to hold on a bit longer.

“Kesh! Kesh, _please_!” she heard from behind her. Loki’s voice.

Oh, if she looked back and saw him, she would be lost. She would take the next bolt of Akatosh’s power straight through her chest and walk into his arms. She couldn’t look.

“Soon, soon, I promise...I promise,” she muttered, looking back up to Akatosh, her eyes narrowed.

Keshaara wasn’t certain how she was going to keep the promise, seeing as Loki would not be in Sovengarde. She was not even confident that _she_ would end up in Sovengarde. She was standing so far from Mundus, in front of Akatosh Himself, and if everything had been consumed back in Mundus, there was nowhere for whatever remained of her soul to go except into Akatosh.

There was no guarantee that her soul would find any rest.

There was especially no guarantee that her soul would, or even could, find rest next to Loki’s. She had gambled away her chance for rest after her death in order to ensure Loki had been sent home. No matter what else had happened to the previous iterations of her, what had happened in all the other Cycles, in this one, she had known what she was doing when she gave her rest over to the Daedra.

The Daedra might be gone, consumed into Akatosh to start the completion of this Cycle but…

She had made her peace with her lack of rest centuries before.

Keshaara took a deep breath, reaching her hand out, wishing for her axe. Or armor. This was not going to be a fight that ended easily. Exhausted as she was, with her soul clotting the air around her, she was already struggling for air. But her body did not hurt.

The healing spell faded from around her.

Akatosh tackled her, wrapping his arms around her middle and throwing her to the ground.

The broken chunks of concrete gouged chunks out of her back, and she left a bloody trail behind her.

The haft of her axe fell heavy into the palm of her hand, and with a roar, she swung, twisting her hips and throwing Akatosh off of her, the blade of her axe slicing into his ribs before she scrambled to her feet again.

Her healing magic snapped around her as soon as she was back on her feet. Her back was healed, but the clothing there was still in tatters. She could not bring herself to care. Clothes were not important in this battle, Akatosh was.

To her left, Durnehviir shouted, before stepping in front of her, putting his own power on the line in her defense. She was stunned by the sudden reappearance of her axe, a weapon she knew was lost in the chaos that had been the Daedric overwhelming of her body. Her mouth was hanging slack as she stared at the well-loved and old etchings of the blade. She ran her thumb across the old artwork. She had asked for specific designs, and seeing the blade again made her heart beat faster.

Slowly, she turned her attention back to the battle, just as Akatosh grabbed Durnehviir by the throat.

Her axe had been her favored weapon for centuries, and it was so easy to step into the battle with it once again. The blade bit deep into Akatosh’s arm, slicing through flesh and bone. Blood – no, it was _ichor_ – splashed over her body as she yanked the axe away. She went for goring wounds, tearing and ripping as she pulled her blade back.

Akatosh dropped Durnehviir, roaring in pain and surprise.

The enchantment on her axe had held true for all these years. She had been so skilled with enchantment. Souls ripped from Akatosh’s flesh, arcing around her blade before vanishing into the air.

Keshaara took a sharp breath, flinching away from the mist of souls. She wanted nothing more of the soul-stuff in her. She was empty inside, yes. Fine. She was empty, and alone, and that was fine. She needed to remain herself. After the overwhelming press of Daedra inside of her, she wanted nothing to do with any other souls melding with her own.

She was herself.

Only herself anymore and ever again. She was never going to let someone else muddle her soul again.

This was enough. That had been enough.

Akatosh roared at her, and she shuddered. It hurt, the brunt of the power brought against her, and the sound tore at whatever remained of her broken and battered soul. She staggered for a moment, but did not go down. No, she was done, she was done being cowed by this power. She was better, stronger, _more_ than she was, more than she had been. It was her birthright.

She was a fighter. She always had been. She always would be.

And Akatosh stood in front of her, demanding a fight.

He did not draw a weapon, but he pulled words of power out of his lungs, words Keshaara had never heard before. Illness, plague, destruction, annihilation.

She understood them as he spoke them, and knew the words to counter them. Vitality, health, restoration, completion, all in order to keep herself alive, and her friends alive as well. She wove her words with grace and alacrity, even as she learned them for the first time. The world around her pinpointed, colors bleeding away, and then coming back in unending brilliance.

Her chest ached terribly, she felt so raw and used up and empty inside, but there was a _fight_ , damn it all.

Akatosh swung his fist, the force of earthquakes behind it.

Keshaara caught the strike on her shoulder, she felt her bones shatter, her collarbone burst from her skin, and she felt some of her ribs break.

She shook her shoulder out, the flesh and bone and muscle re-knitting themselves in a single smooth movement. Without even bothering to summon her magic, Keshaara willed herself whole again. She sliced through Akatosh’s gut with her axe, a triumphant scream ripping from her throat.

Blood – _no its ichor he is a **GOD**_ – splashed over her wrist and she tore the axe away.

Her heart thundered in her chest, and the familiar surge of adrenaline rattled through her. She let the power flow through her, not caring where it was coming from. There was power in her. She was powerful. She _was_ powerful. All of the power had to come from somewhere, it had to. But it did not matter where that was, not right now. What mattered right now was that she was powerful. If the power came from elsewhere, it did not matter. It could not come from Akatosh, or Mundus. But no matter where it came from, the power was here.

And she was going to use it.

All of it. Until there was nothing left.

Until she died.

Or until Akatosh did.

The battle-song thundered behind her eyes, painting the world over with savage red and silver. She smelled blood, and the predator’s power in her chest rejoiced at the scent. It was…

Akatosh stumbled away from her, clutching the gaping wound that leaked blood and soulstuff in equal parts. Keshaara’s lungs burned with the exertion of not breathing any of those leaking souls in. She wanted none of them. None of the power the souls promised her, none of the confinement it doomed her to. She was _Keshaara_.

She was Keshaara, and all that _that_ entailed.

She stalked Akatosh, pacing at the edge of the range they shared, waiting for an opening. Stunned, he was still clutching at the wounds she had inflicted on him.

As the souls escaped, the wounds knit themselves closed, and when the blood stopped falling (eating into the concrete, hissing as it hit the ground like water on a skillet) he looked back up to her with rage written into every coiled muscle.

“You have no idea what you _do!_ ” he screamed, breathing what little remained of the soul-stuff back into himself. “What we are _losing_!”

Her grin was tight around her teeth.

“Then stop me.”

With a roar that shattered what glass remained in the area, Akatosh lunged at her, a sword made of stars in his hands. Her axe came up, and light flashed all around her. The sword met armor with a deep sound, like a bell sounding out. The light faded.

She thought she heard Loki groan an appreciative obscenity. He would have loved this armor. It had been made as a wedding presentation. Charcoal grey, orange, gold, and black. It fit her like sin. It felt bittersweet to wear it. But if she was going to die, she would die in it.

No helm graced her head, just the circlet she had crafted with an eye to replace the crown she and Loki would never have worn. The armor itself hummed with magic, just as much a part of her as the blood in her veins and axe in her hands. Akatosh’s sword had hit her shoulder, and stopped, its blade spitting power and energy like the heart of a star. But it did not even bite the smallest bit into her armor. She knew what she had made the armor out of, and it should not be able to withstand Akatosh’s blade.

It did.

“Impossible!” Akatosh shouted, surprised and furious.

“Then I am.”

She rolled her shoulder, knocking his blade away as if she were simply batting away an errant hand set upon her by a presumptuous nobody.

Her body remembered the rhythms of battle.

Her heart remembered the tempo of glory.

Her breath remembered the taste of soul untainted.

Keshaara bit back the laugh, for she knew it was borne of a madness unending. She was not mad, not really. Not yet. Not ever. She understood herself better, though, as the battle raged. Blade and magic met and clashed and spun away from the two of them. She knew who she was. Akatosh could not take that away from her.

Souls clotted the air around them, shimmering blue and wavering at the edges of her periphery. Keshaara ignored them, purposefully not breathing them in, even if it meant Akatosh could heal himself as she beat him down. Blood – _he is no **GOD** no matter what he says_ – splashed over the glory of her armor, soaking in and vanishing. Not that she could see that.

No, there was only this fight.

This fight, one that would echo louder than any of her previous battles. The one that should never happen, never have happened, never been made to happen.

This one.

So Keshaara fought. She did not need to win, she did not care if she did or not. But she wanted…she wanted to die in glory. If she was going to die, Akatosh would pay for every bloody day of her life she had spent wasting away under the heavy hand of destiny.

Eyes forward.

Elbows in.

Focus down.

 _Fight_.

Axe met sword, met flesh, met armor. Sword met armor, met axe, met air. Their magic dueled for dominance of the sky, wreaking havoc on what remained of the city block their battle had been tossed to. There was no time to worry about such things.

There was only the fight.


	34. Sigh

Each breath hurt her lungs. She was, she should be, by all accounts, dead. She should be, but she wasn’t.

Keshaara spun her axe around her hand, a familiar flourish, a comforting gesture, but a useful one. Even if she did not remember, her body did. The thrill of victory, the exhilaration of _feeling_ her body tense and relax at her every command, the way her blood sang in her veins, all of it made her exult anew.

Her body ached, like she had worked her body to exhaustion throughout the entirety of the week before. Moving hurt, fighting hurt, breathing hurt. But the pain was sweet. Delightful. Familiar. Everything of it was familiar and felt right. Her life had been pain from the moment she had been born. A little more was not going to kill her.

A lot more wouldn’t kill her.

But Akatosh was going to try.

He swung at her wildly, a sword in hand. It was beyond the time for finesse and technique. This was a brawl. Magic, blade, the voice of storms, all of it. This was not a fight that was pretty. Not anymore. No. It wasn’t anything but screams of pain and fury and glorious _battle!!_

A laugh ripped out of her throat as the sword Akatosh wielded shattered against her armor. Rarely had she felt so fucking _good_ while everything in her hurt as bad as it did.

It would not last. She knew that.

Her body hurt like she was burning. Burns were so uncommon in her life. Fire never hurt her. It had never hurt her. She could walk through flame and emerge unharmed. Time and again, from before even the first _Yol_ that Paarthunax had greeted her with, she had never been burned by fire proper.

The sensation was unfamiliar, but…it burned.

Like there was a fire in her skin and bones. Like she could breathe fire without having to pull power through…anywhere. She hurt with how much power rattled in her chest It felt good. It hurt. All. Both. At once. And so much more. All of it! All of it, all of it all of it all at once.

She caught his sword in the beard of her axe, twisting savagely. Akatosh’s sword shattered. The sound it made was like a loud bell ringing out. Loud enough to make her heart skip a beat, hurt her lungs, rattle her bones and tear muscle.

It hurt.

Pain rattled through her, but she shook the shards of Akatosh’s sword out of the beard of her axe, stepped up, and swung again. No matter how it hurt, no matter how much it made her want to cry out for succor, for it to stop, for anyone to come help her, she would not. The path before her was clear, she knew what she had to do.

Fight or die.

No death yet.

So fight.

Akatosh roared, slashing at her with clawed hands with scale and talon breaking through the veneer of Nord-flesh. Keshaara roared back, beating a fist against her breastplate. The world shook in time to the beating of her fist. She took no notice of it. Her world had pinpointed to just the two of them.

She felt like she was going to explode. The power that came from nowhere was building inside of her again. It still did not feel like the Tesseract had. This power came from somewhere new. It did not matter to her where it came from. Nor did it matter that it felt like it was leaking out of her as fast as it poured in. She had it.

It fueled her, it gave her a reason to keep fighting. She could do this. For every last thing ever taken from her, for every person who had died needlessly, for everything she had lost, and found, and lost again. For the broken promises, for the promises she kept. All of it. All of it kept her going when she should, by every metric of living, stop.

* * *

She bled like anything else. Loki had watched her bleed more than once. She was mortal. Mortal with everything else that that entailed. She bled, she died, she breathed and had an invisible counter on her heartbeats that was always, always ticking down, and never back up.

He had tried shouting her name, tried getting her attention, tried everything he could do with his body incapable of moving anywhere to help her.

It looked like Durnehviir and Odahviing were being held by the same power. None of them could move forward, or engage in the fight. It seemed like every strike and block that Keshaara and Akatosh made against each other shook the entire world, and he was helpless to do anything but watch.

His own magic could not match the power the two of them threw carelessly around them. Watching, he was not even certain that Keshaara was aware of the power leaking from her. This reminded him all too much of the moments when the Tesseract had been taking her over.

She may seem more in command now than she had been then, but it still made his chest _hurt_.

Her blood was chased in gold.

_What?!_

Her blood was chased in _gold_. Magic sparked in what was supposed to be the blood of a mortal, and he watched as her blood dripped down onto the concrete and asphalt. There, it sizzled and spat, eating into the ground.

Loki tried, desperately, to summon the strength he would need to call out to Keshaara. He did not even know what he wanted to say to her, but he knew, he knew, he _knew_ that whatever was happening was something worth telling her about, that she needed to know what it was that was going on. She was –

It couldn’t be. There were legends of legends that talked about this. But…

No.

This was not coming to pass. He could not hope for this.

She was grievously injured, barely standing, no matter how firm her strikes seemed. No matter how often the golden spells of healing spilled from her, she was still injured. The red blood, shot through with gold, slicked her body down to the ankle. A vital part of her had been cut, and she was bleeding heavily. Her left eye was gone, the wound as fresh as the day she must have first received it.

Every movement she made seemed unbothered by such trivial nonsense as a missing eye, or fractured bones or seeping blood.

Loki closed his eyes. He could not let himself hope for the impossible. There was only so much impossibility one person could ever hope to embody. Keshaara had done so much already – from protecting him in Skyrim, to returning him from Skyrim, to coming when he called her, surviving Jotunheim, surviving Asgard, surviving the Tesseract, coming back from the dead, and then…and then this.

All of this.

She had never failed him, but what his eyes were tricking him into seeing. It was not happening. His madness was consuming him, the stress was too much, fine, let it be as such. As long as Keshaara _lived_. Despite the bloodloss, despite the battle, despite the way her body was _broken_ , she lived. She stood. She fought.

By every star in the sky, he **loved** her.

* * *

Akatosh was screaming still. She could see his mouth open, and words forming, lips moving. She felt blood slick her neck. Her ears were bleeding now. It was not unusual.

Not that she had ever done anything like this, she had never done this before, never faced Akatosh down full of power that was not her own.

The power was no one else’s, either.

Maybe that made it hers.

Was this power hers?

Akatosh’s next roar brought her to her knees, all her strength, borrowed or innate, leaking from her in a single moment. Everything was stripped away in a single moment. She gasped. Her axe clattered to the ground, and her skin split as power rent flesh and air in equal parts.

She looked up at him.

Half covered in black scales, half covered in skin, with his armor gaping open from where her axe had pulled magic and souls away from him, Akatosh looked mad. Insanity danced in his eyes, the same sort that had plagued Sheograth in the time that Keshaara had known that particular Daedra. To see it reflected in Akatosh’s eyes should have surprised her, but…this seemed right.

Akatosh was the First, and from him all else had once flowed. The Aedra and Daedra both had come from him. All of existence was before him.

He commanded power – all of it. Life, death, all of it should, rightfully belong to him. She knew that much of the old histories. Myth, legend, faith, what have you. She knew what she had been taught, knew what she had found out in her many travels through the underbelly of Skyrim. She knew that Akatosh was going to win.

He was going to tear everything out of her and leave her dead and broken.

But she was not dead yet.

No.

She hurt, she bled, she _suffered_ but she was not dead.

Again, the golden healing magic sprang around her body, sealing the wounds that Akatosh had inflicted. There was a popping sound as her eardrums sealed themselves shut again.

The pain did not lessen, but she did not expect it to. She was here to fight. And she was going to fight.

Akatosh stood over her, gasping for air.

“Why, _why_ are you still fighting, child? You _know_ you cannot win,” he snarled, reaching down to grab the front of her armor and hefted her to her feet.

Keshaara grabbed his wrist with both of her hands, struggling against his grasp. Her feet kicked out ineffectively, as he held her up. She could get no traction to better get his hands off of her, and eventually, the pain won over her need to fight back, and she hung limply.

“You know this is fruitless. You know how this ends. I am going to kill you. You should accept that and just _die_!”

The idea was a gentle one. If she relaxed and let herself go, she could just die. Just let it all be undone. No one would ever know. She would never know, either. She would forget. All of it. She would forget in death. She had died before. She had died and come back so many times. There were hundreds of thousands of iterations of her that had died already. She had forgotten them all until Akatosh had shown her the endings of a half dozen them.

It was not until she lived those deaths again that she understood what she had lost.

If she forgot Loki, she would hurt less.

If she died, and forgot, and woke up in her body, a child again, a babe again, she would not hurt anymore. She would not miss him anymore. She would not hear his ghost cry out to her, she would not have to live with the knowledge that if she had done something – _anything_ – different  in the life that had led her to this moment, slowly strangling with a body only slightly less broken than her soul, she would not be without him.

She just had to die.

To let Akatosh kill her.

“It is not surrender, I am a God. You will be reborn and remade. There will be no mode of this. You will be allowed to stop. Everything. Everything will stop and you can rest. I _promise_ , child, it will be over and you will stop hurting. Just. Die.”

Keshaara gasped for air, kicking herself up just the slightest bit more to get a single breath into her lungs.

Part of her wanted nothing more than to accept. To just let herself die. Rest. Sleep. Be unaware.

It would be easy.

Her hands dropped from Akatosh’s wrist, and she hung limply. Her eyes closed, and she let her body relax.

She had fought so long. She wanted to fight but…but why should she? Why should she struggle and work and fight? She was going to lose anyway, wasn’t she? Who could kill a God?

Certainly not her.

She was just a Nord.

Nothing special, no one who was legend-marked. Keshaara had done her job centuries ago, and outlived every last iota of usefulness she had had in her in the wake of freeing Akatosh from the bonds of being Alduin. She was supposed to be dead already.

So if she just…gave up…maybe she could rest. She could sleep. Forget. Find peace.

His other hand closed around her throat as well. Akatosh said nothing more, content with her lack of fighting. He would kill her. She just had to stop fighting.

The world went grey and black at the edges again. The pain in her chest receded, leaving her with nothing more. She just needed to die. No more fighting. No more anything. Just die and forget. Forget everything. Just slip into death. Go quietly.

* * *

She almost did.

* * *

“ _KESHAARA!_ ”

James’ voice broke through the sudden lethargy that had stolen through her body. She snapped a kick up into Akatosh’s gut, her own muscles screaming in pain at the sudden action, and twisted away. He dropped her, doubling over in shock and pain. Air flooded into her lungs.

Keshaara landed hard on her feet, before collapsing to the ground, her knees giving out from the sudden unexpected weight. Akatosh reacted faster than she could, picking her up by the scruff of her neck and tossing her to the side, away from James and the other Avengers who must have gathered here as their fight had gone on.

She hit a pile of rubble, and collapsed. All the fight had gone out of her. She was exhausted. Bone-deep weary, and feeling like cut glass inside, Keshaara took a long breath. Her body shook with the exertion of simply trying to _breathe_. Fighting was beyond her. How was she supposed to fight when she could barely breathe?

She heard Akatosh yell, and the answering shouts of the Avengers rose in response. Battle-music rose up, the cacophony of heavy impact, tearing metal, and grunts of pain. Keshaara blinked, dust clogging her vision. She managed to get to her knees, her gauntlets protecting her palms from the shattered glass and broken concrete. That was a small blessing. But a good one.

James’ voice broke above them all, screaming something in…Daedra and Aedra both, she could not be bothered to try and translate it, but he sounded like he was in pain.

That pulled at something in her, and without meaning to be, Keshaara found her feet again, unsteadily swaying as she tried to stay standing. She could not see him, but she heard him yell again, a response from Steve, a heavy sound of impact, then nothing from them. The high keening sound of Tony’s repulsors firing took over the battle from there.

She had to help.

Blinking again only barely managed to get the spots and shadows to subside enough for her to see Akatosh’s form in front of her, and Keshaara did not have enough breath in her lungs to call out to get his attention. Every single time she drew air into her lungs was a victory more precious than any of her other battles before. The exultation had stopped. The power that had thundered in her had gone quiet.

She staggered towards Akatosh. She might not be able to fight, but she could defend her friends. James was her friend. She had to protect him. She had to. That was who she was. She protected them. She would protect them. No matter how much pain she was in. No matter the trembling fear that shook in her chest, beneath the years of battle-ready experience. She would fight. If she could not fight, she would protect.

Ω _Ahkrin_ Ω

Her axe was in her hand again. She did not know how it got there. She did not remember picking it up. Did not remember much about her approach. But she had to move forward. Had to advance. Had to protect.

The Avengers were no match for Akatosh. Tony zipped around, strafing past Akatosh, drawing fire away from Clint and Natasha, who were both doing their level best to put any sort of damage on Akatosh. Thor was flinging lightning at Akatosh, and Bruce…well he was very large and very green and throwing chunks of road and building at Akatosh himself.

To her surprise, Durnehviir and Odahviing were working with the Avengers as well, throwing their own magic and might around, hounding Akatosh, drawing him away from the mortals of this realm.

All of them, they were her friends. Companions. Whatever it was that they were to her, they were in danger. She had to protect them. She had to fight.

Her body hurt.

It had hurt before.

Her companions needed her. She would fight.

No time for theatrics. No time for anything. Akatosh still stood, embattled, but strong and winning. She needed to change that. Or he was going to kill them all. He was not going to leave just because she died. They attacked him, threatened his Godhood. He would kill them all to preserve his ego.

Gasping, she tore off her armor, letting it fall from her body as she advanced. It was so heavy. So, so heavy. It fell to ash as soon as it was pulled from her body. Losing it did not feel like she had lost any weight, it didn’t change anything, but she _needed_ it off of her. The touch of it on her flesh was driving her mad. Remnants of a life she could never live.

Her axe was her only weapon. The only one she needed. The only one she had ever needed. She fought. She fought. She fought.

Akatosh was consumed with his battles. He did not even consider her approach. Keshaara would not have paid her any mind, either. Not in her state.

Everything in her screamed for respite, for relief, to stop everything, but her friends needed help. There was still a fight. She still needed to fight. She could end the fight. Then she could be done. That was a good, calming thought. If she did this, she could be done. The First of creation would be defeated, the Cycles would be over and maybe then she could just…be done.

The swing of her axe felt awkward and heavy, but her aim was true.

Akatosh froze, his head snapping back as the blade of her axe cut into his chest. She did not need to look at the sheer amount of blood that was pouring over her hands to know that it was a fatal wound.

With a cry, she jerked the axe free. It slid from her hands, clattering to the ground. The soul its blade had torn from him dissipated into mist around them. She did not breathe it in, but she saw it. Akatosh fell to the ground, clutching at the wound, magic sparking at his hands, but unable to heal his injury.

He turned his head, just barely, to stare up at her, his eyes wide and staring.

“Y-you couldn’t…not you….”

His eyes, once full of color and vibrancy, dulled and went flat. Keshaara stumbled back, away from his body. It burned, consumed by the same fire that had destroyed the bones and flesh of every dragon she had ever faced. He was gone. Done. Completed.

The world went blessedly quiet.

She blinked, trying to get her eyes to focus, but with Akatosh gone, it seemed like she was going to go too. The exhaustion took over any remnants of pain, leaving her gasping for air in deadened lungs.

She had done it.

Killed Akatosh. Destroyed a God.

There was no relief. No bliss. Nothing. She still hurt. Breathing hurt. The burning was gone, replaced with spears of ice cold that punched through her veins. She struggled to breathe. Color bled out of the world around her, steeping everything in shades of grey. Durnehviir and Odahviing called out to her, but their words were mud in her ears.

Keshaara fell forward, and one of them caught her, gently turning her body so that she came to rest on her back on the overheated concrete. She could not find it in her to struggle against it. All of her strength was gone. Air stagnated in her lungs. Her heart’s beating slowed, slowed, slowed.

Green and gold burst into her field of view. Loki stood over her, the sun above them crowning him in a corona of light. The world went black around him, leaving him the only bastion of color, a riotous cavalcade of gold and green.

Her heart could beat not longer, there was no life left in her. The First of Creation had died. There was no Skyrim, no old magic holding her together, no great blessing of Daedra or Aedra to hold her soul to a body broken centuries ago. Her body, littered with scars the Aesir had asked it to forget, marked with tattoos she had hidden from all others, stilled, the fires of power guttering out.

Cold stole across her.

The last gasp of air she held between her teeth, she relinquished joyously, for it made the sound of his name, one last time.

“ _Loki_.”

The world faded to grey.

“ _KESHAARA!_ ”

 


	35. Death

There was silence now.

The ungodly silence after battle. The one that existed solely to remind the survivors of what had been lost. Civilians. Broken buildings. Crushed glass. Blood.

Loki stood, surrounded by the Avengers, not caring that they were staring at him.

He only had eyes for her body. She had come back. She had come _back_ and he had felt her body burning him again. He had seen her body bleeding red and _gold_ and had dared to hope that that meant she was truly going to be alright.

But she was not.

She was dead.

His heart turned to ash.

She lay there, flanked by the dragon-men. Even they seemed more grey around the edges, staring down at Keshaara’s body.

Loki did not know if he wanted to rage at them, or break down in tears and hysterics of his own at the sight of it. He had come so close, hadn’t he? Hadn’t he been close enough? Done enough?

He knelt next to her body, hesitant to reach out and put his hands on her cheek.

Her body was still warm.

Loki felt tears burning  in the corners of his eyes as he stared down at her. Hesitantly, he brushed an errant hair out of her face. Her eyes had closed, or been closed by one of the dragons, but he still wanted to – he _needed_ to touch her. The necklace he had worn in the time he had been away from her had scorched a hole through the chestpiece of his armor, and he did not have the time or energy to try and fix it. His heart felt as ruined as his armor was.

A hand fell on his shoulder.

“Brother.”

Thor’s greeting was short, but he could not help but to read so much emotion into the simple word. Loki sighed, low and long. He was not ready for the conversation Thor would want to have over what he had done, the betrayal, the vanishing, everything. He had done so much to try and keep this from happening, but here he was. Surrounded by the Avengers. Keshaara dead. Plans in ruin, the world endangered.

It was…

“I am so sorry, brother,” Thor said, kneeling down next to Loki, and reaching out to put a hand on his shoulder. “I could not…I should have known you were not dead and allowed her the same knowledge.”

Loki stiffened at Thor’s words. This was not what he had expected from his brother, of all people. This was as close as the two of them had been in a long while, even from before his faux-death.

“She loved you, Loki. She was heartbroken when you…died,” he said, looking down at her body. “I don’t think I’ve seen anyone more courageous. Leaving Asgard, going to Midgard, all of the work she’s done. She had one of your cloaks. She kept it in her room in Tony’s Tower. Trained with Clint, worked to do the best she possibly could…and she-”

“Thor, please, I know. I know.”

Thor’s hand left his shoulder. Silence stole over them again.

There was no gold in her blood. It had been a trick of the light, nothing more. She was not going to come back. Not this time. Twice in so short a time was already too much. Too many miracles for one person.

How much could he really expect from someone, even someone as brilliant and astounding and awe-inspiring as Keshaara to keep coming back from the dead for him?

She had come to Asgard, wreathed in glory. Declared herself his Champion. That should have been impossible, by all rights, whatever it was that had caused the accidental link between their worlds, whatever she had done to send him home, and the price she had paid without ever even expecting to see him again. She had sacrificed what he now knew was…fucking damn near _everything_ to get him home again. And never expected to see him again.

But when he had called her, she had come.

She had come, and without question, without even caring that it had been four hundred years since the two of them had last spoke (by her own reckoning, at least), she had immediately spoken for him, laying her life down on the line for him.

She had died for him.

By his hand, even. He had killed her, knowing nothing of the plan to bring her back. He had done it because it had been right, and she had died. Then been brought back. She had come back. Once, without her power and might and magic, just a woman, and he had been overjoyed to have even that much. Because she had been _alive_ and that could have been enough. He would have been fine. He would have loved her as she was, he would have spent his entire life helping her, assisting her, doing everything he could to make her life easier because she had been _alive_ and his and everything glorious.

And then her power had come back. Then the two of them truly could have been together but…

But he had wanted to stop Thanos. He had wanted to make the entire universe safer so that she would never be endangered again. That had meant, unfortunate of unfortunates, that he had to convince her that he was dead and that there was nowhere else for her to go. He had hoped, he had thought, he had dared to _pray_ that she would not do anything rash in his absence.

He had heard of her mourning. His sources has told him of her long watch, of the way she so casually wasted away, and when she finally snapped out of it, they had told him how long she had sat in silence and done nothing.

It was not until she made the decision to come to Midgard that he had thought to approach her again. And in approaching her , he knew he had made some manner of mistake.

She was everything to him.

Everything.

Her breath was his, her heart’s beating was his own. She came to him, broken and hurting, begging to forget something, anything of who he was, gasping _his name_ when she was caught up in the passion of it all.

He had nearly died then.

Died of the small betrayal he was offering her, died of the words he was holding back from her, died of anything and everything that dared keep him from telling her that it was _him_ , that he was _there_ with her, and instead, he had taken her pleasure and walked away.

He had _thought_ he would have time. Time to apologize, time to explain, time to tell her everything he had been too afraid to say when the world was on tenterhooks.

Instead, he had run out of time.

She had died. Again. She had died in his arms today. Then come back, bearing magic more terrifying and awesome than anything he had ever seen before. He had hoped against hope that the voice in his head had not lead him astray, that his presence here had truly helped and that it had not all been a fool’s errand to unravel his careful plans.

If he had not come, he would have never seen her again. But…maybe that would have been better. To remember her in pleasure (oh but she had been burning up, consumed by power, going mad from it all) instead of in pain.

The thoughts were impossible to handle. He did not want to think about it, and he definitely did not want to talk to his brother about how he felt about it because his feelings were too tumultuous for even him to put into words that would make any sort of sense. His pain was so raw and unbearable to even start to talk about.

He was not certain he would ever really want to talk about it. It all hurt. So much.

And this time, there was nothing he could do to bring her back. There was no soul gem. Nothing else. No plan, nothing. Just Keshaara. Dead.

He looked at her body, reaching out to gently, carefully, lovingly, cup her hand with his. The tenderness made Thor’s heart ache. He had rarely ever seen his brother show such open emotion. The other Avengers had gathered, saying nothing, just watching in silence. There was so much that they were suddenly being exposed to – from Loki being gentle and tender to the body of the one that had, presumably, loved him, to Keshaara’s rampaging power and subsequent death, resurrection, and death again.

And now, a villain was openly mourning.

Loki did not know when the first tear had slid down his face, but now that it had started, he found the tears coming faster and faster.

He did not want to show this emotion to the Avengers, not to his sworn enemies. It did not matter what he _wanted_ , however, as the day had already proven.

A strangled sob wracked through him, and he did not stop the broken wail that followed soon after it.

She was gone.

Keshaara was gone. Gone from him, away from him, to somewhere he could never follow. She had called his name, and what poorer last words could there be for her than the name of the man who had failed her so utterly as to allow her to die in his arms _twice_? She had whispered his name with reverence, and adoration and died thinking he was dead.

There was no gloried rest for him. His soul would forever wander in search of hers. They would never find each other. Sovengarde, whatever remained of it with Akatosh gone was not the same as Helheim. She was gone from him.

He would make the preparations for her funeral as soon as he could. There was magic to keep her body preserved until the proper rituals had been observed. Loki only had nominal knowledge of what the funerary rights of Skyrim and Tamriel had required, but he could do right by her with an Asgardian funeral. It would be the absolute least that he could do for her.

Before he could collect himself, could stop the intermittent sobs and the tears that rolled down the features of his face that had always been called _proud_ and begin his work of preparing and transporting her body, he felt her body burning again.

And not like it had done all the previous times.

No, like the dragons Paarthunax and Akatosh, like the dragons she had brought from Skyrim when the Tesseract had been controlling her, when he had watched her kill dragons in Skyrim during his time there, her body was burning.

Loki could only watch, horrified, transfixed, as her body vanished, whisked away by a power and magic beyond him.

He knew she had never belonged to Midgard, or Asgard, or anywhere in the Nine Realms. He knew that she had been dragonborn, the Dovahkiin, the one to take the body of a dragon for herself in a twist of fate and Power, but…

The broken cry that tore from him did not come even the slightest bit close to fully expressing the absolute depths of his pain as he watched her body vanish. Consumed by fire, it was soon nothing but ash, and even that was gone in a wisp of magic moments later.

Dumbstruck, and stricken through the heart, Loki merely sat in place, staring at the slight char on the earth where her body had just been. If this was some manner of joke, it was far from amusing.

Loki pressed the palm of his hand to the overheated earth where her body had _just_ been. None of his magic could bring her back, and even as he sent questing tendrils of his power down into the earth, searching for any remnant of her, he knew he would find nothing. She was gone.

Well and truly gone.

How was he supposed to…

What was he going to…

“Loki. You must come home now. Father…mother. They will want to see you. Know you are alive…”

“Punish me, you mean,” Loki said bitterly, turning to his brother, his voice ragged with emotion. “They do not care for what I have been doing, they will not understand why I had to do what I did. I don’t want them to understand it. I want her _back_.”

Thor looked appropriately chastised by the emotional outburst. Loki hated it. Hated his emotions betraying him, hated being watched as he was ridden by the thoughts of what he had done, what he had sacrificed. For all of it to be in vain…for him to truly lose everything…

There had been a time when he had thought he had lost everything, when he thought he had been brought as low as possible. Prison had been a terrible thing, an ordeal that had challenged his very sanity. He would prefer that. He wanted that solitude again. Anything to not have to deal with those who had never, who would never understood what he felt when he said now that there was nothing left for him.

* * *

Ω AHKRIN Ω

* * *

Months passed.

He was taken back to Asgard, made to give an accounting of everything he had been doing, and it was finally this time that people chose to listen to the words he said instead of filling his mouth with their own ideas and claiming them as his. Perhaps it was the loss he had endured, perhaps it was something else, Loki could not know but he fell into a deadened routine.

His plans, delicately lain, and requiring constant upkeep, all crumbled. He knew enough to give warnings, to make sure that when the time came, when the truly terrible and horrible things clawed their way out of the abyss to take them all, they were prepared.

They would not be caught off guard like they had been with the Chitauri and the dark elves.

No, this time, there would be a proper battle made of it all.

He knew that much. He could stomach that much.

It did not matter how his mother coddled him, or how anyone else tried to comfort him. He was cut to the quick. Every breath felt like it was tearing at the shreds of his soul. Everything hurt. But in the morning, he would awake, and go about his day. He avoided the wing of the palace that had been her rooms’ location. He could not even look Dómhildr in the eye, on the remarkably few occasions the two of them crossed paths.

He wanted nothing more than to just stop and be left alone, and allowed to mourn as best he saw fit, but…there was work to be done. And he had always prided himself on his work.

Frigga insisted upon a funeral for Keshaara, and the shores had been all but empty as her boat went sailing over the falls. A few of her items had been placed in the boat in lieu of a body, and Loki had watched, stone-faced, as the ship had tipped over the edge of the falls.

He had wanted to climb in the ship and fall over the edge with what little remained of her in his world. He could not.

Loki had work to do. He had to preserve what little aspects of her remained. Save the world. Be a hero. She had been a hero. Over and over again, a hero. He wanted to do right by her memory. He wanted…he may never really be able to be a hero, not with everything else he had done in his life to that point, but he wanted to make whatever shade of her existed in whatever afterlife there was for her proud of what he did.

And that meant he could not die. Not yet.

He worked. And lived. And kept himself as calm and levelheaded as he could as he struggled with the pain in his chest.

Sleep evaded him some nights.

Others, it lulled him into delirium-dreams of Keshaara, resplendent and glorious, in Skyrim, not as a pawn in a game, but as the player. Fantasy sweeter than anything else he had thought of in his waking hours dragged him down and made it nearly impossible to ever want to wake.

Awareness came slowly to him those days, painfully dragging him away from the one last place where he could at least _pretend_ to be with her.

Loki did not know if he wanted to sleep more or never again. When those dreams left him, aching in his loneliness, alone in his bed, he hated them. When he dreamed of darkness or saw her body burning into nothingness, the thought of seeing her again made his heart sing.

There was no way for him to find peace. No matter where he turned, the lack of her, or the presence of her shade, or anything about her made him hurt.

The first time he tried to open one of the books she had given him back in Skyrim, he had been forced to watch as it crumbled into dust in his hands. After that, he did not touch or try to move the books, leaving them as they were, another constant reminder of her loss.

The necklace with her talisman on it stayed around his neck. The chain was warped where the magic had burst from it, and beyond that, the talisman itself had half-melted into something completely unrecognizable as anything that Keshaara would have ever made. He had allowed Durnehviir to investigate it (while he still wore it, he was never taking that chain or that talisman off, never, not ever) and the dragon had had little to say.

“You placed the shard of her soul gem, here?”

“Yes.”

“And when it touched her, her body reanimated?”

He nodded, not trusting his words.

“It…must have still held something of her soul. Not enough to really, truly, be her but enough for her to keep you safe…” the dragon had mused, running his thumb over the talisman. “Interesting. Incredibly interesting.”

“She still died.”

Durnehviir had turned his dead grey eyes up to Loki’s at that, and held his gaze for a long moment before speaking.

“She was already dead, Loki. You brought her back. Resurrected her. Akatosh had destroyed what souls lived in her chest. You gave her herself back and she chose to fight. She killed Akatosh with her cairn closing around her neck. That means something.”

After that, Durnehviir had gone silent, returning to Helheim and leaving him to his thoughts.

He swallowed his pain down. He finished his proposal gift, the stars of all the Nine realms and of Skyrim, revisited with painstaking accuracy. It was a magic that seemed small by comparison of what she was – what she had been. But he finished his work, and he kept the small magical box with him, tucked and tied to his belt, within easy reach of his nervous fingers.

The presence of the box with him soothed him, more than any platitude or sideways pitying look people cast his way. He would run his fingers over the careful carvings and inlays he had spent weeks on, remember that he had _loved her_ and find some manner of peace in knowing that she had loved him too. She did.

She had.

It would be enough. Could be enough.

He would learn how to be a hero, and save the world from the chaos he had sown in the time before he knew to be better. And maybe then…maybe he could be worthy of her. Maybe he would find her when he died. Maybe maybe maybe. It could be enough. He could hope that it would be enough. That he would see her.  


	36. Gust

The battle raged. Across Asgard and Midgard both, the Chitauri came again, lead by Thanos, the Others. It was a brutality enacted against whoever showed their face to battle.

Bodies littered the streets, cluttering and choking the battlefields.

Loki found himself on Midgard, with his brother, and the Avengers. The city around them was well on its way to ruination. Battles raged, in the streets, in the air, through buildings, depending on each of the Avenger’s main preferences in battle. Loki, himself, tried to stay out of the way, unused to their teamwork, unused to many things, and worst of all –

Ghosts of the past flitted through the corners of his eyes. He had come here to rule, once, and fought alongside the Chitauri who now paid him hardly any more mind than any of the other combatants on the field. He had watched Keshaara _die_ here, and it did not matter how much he put his mind to avoiding that accursed piece of land, he kept flying over it, finding it despite his very specific desires to never, ever, ever see it again.

He fought, battled, won, and drew even.

He knew the game he was playing, knew the stakes were high – higher than anything else he had ever gambled in. The plan was out of his hands now, given over to those who insisted they could bring about the best ending. There would be no end to this war today, there would be no great victory, only a breathless draw if they were lucky and everything went their way.

If not, they lost.

And Thanos would win. Thanos would win, everything he worked for would be for naught, and Keshaara’s death would be meaningless.

He could not let that happen.

So he fought, doing what he could to stem the onslaught of Chitauri to give those setting the stage for the proper defense and deactivation of the Chitauri drones some time.

The last time the drones had been defeated, it had nearly killed Stark, and left him in a state of panic for months afterwards. The cold void had done to Stark what it had done to Loki. He did not care if that meant the two of them should understand each other, because Stark was a irrationally irritating man and Loki did not want to think of himself having more in common with Stark than absolutely necessary.

But the battle raged, regardless of his feelings on the matter.

Illusion and knives and magic danced around him. He could hear his brother crowing victory over whoever had dared face him, and Loki wished he could celebrate in the battle. There had been a time when even he had enjoyed fighting alongside Thor. When the two of them, and the Warriors Three and Sif had all fought together and his life had been easier.

His aspirations had not been lesser, but it had been easier then. Less was up in the air, less had been lost, less was resting on a plan he had made in secret, less than there was now. He had been…a lesser man.

Now, though, now he was fighting to keep all of the Nine Realms safe from the very demise he had put into motion. Once upon a time, before he had known the scope of it all, he had thought it would have made his argument stronger – made it more obvious that Thor was not the one to lead – and now, he did not want the Kingship, he did not want anything that anyone could give to him.

He wanted _Keshaara_ and she was gone. Forever gone.

So he would fight and battle and do whatever he could to make sure her memory could be proud of who he was. Who he had learned to be. Who she had taught him to be.

An errant shot from one of the Chitauri guns caught him in the shoulder, staggering him forward. Loki threw his magic behind him to deflect the next bolt, a shield of magic jumping to his defense. His heart ached as he saw the familiar arching of the shield, and for a moment, he thought of Keshaara again.

He had to shake his head and prepare his magic anew. He was not going to get caught up in those thoughts. Not right now.

There was work to do, battles to win. Fights to engage in, enemies to destroy, people to protect.

When had _he_ become the protector?

When he had first fallen into that tree in Skyrim, when he had first found himself staring at Keshaara, first thought about kissing her pretty chapped lips, first decided to follow her on her adventures…he did not think his life turning out this way was even a possibility. Protecting was not much his forte, it was never what he had been known for.

But he had watched Keshaara, watched her fight, lose, win, victorious and defeated, and watched her get up. And get up. And always get up.

She died defending people, she took punishment and grievous injuries. She took curses and injuries and she never stopped. Not even shown signs of hesitating, not once even flinching.

Gods, he had seen so much of her and she had given so much of herself to everything and anyone who even was halfway useful to her. And had never once flinched away or tried to mitigate her pain.

It had inspired something in him.

His shield danced in front of him, throwing another shot wide. A scream sounded from his left, and without thinking about it, he turned and let his shield flow from him to block the attack against…a civilian? It didn’t matter. They were protected, and safe, behind his magic.

A shot rang out, and Loki staggers again, grunting as his armor took a brunt of the attack again. He was not hurt, not yet, but he was thrown off of his center, turning slightly to catch his balance.

A knife shimmered in his hand and he threw it. A Chitauri gurgled as the knife slammed into its throat.

He heard shouts from behind him. It was chaos, and there were all sorts of screams and shouting all around him. But it was the sharp sound that broke through, for whatever reason. Part of him thought it could have been Barnes, Steve’s friend. He did not know why he thought that, specifically, but it felt right.

He did not have a good reason to know how he knew what he knew, but he _knew_ it was Barnes.

Loki shook his head, turning his attention back to the battles around him. The Chitauri were easily goaded away from targets when they saw him. That was part of the reason he was on Midgard and not in Asgard – if he could distract the Chitauri away from the far more vulnerable Midgardians,

It was a good pursuit, a noble one. He…he could do that.

Another scream.

Something tugged at his heart. He almost abandoned his position to run to Barnes, but restrained himself. It did not matter. He was defending his point. He was going to keep things safe from where he was. Barnes and the other Avengers were not even really his allies. They were around. They were _here_ , he was trying to help them, and he would help them as best he could, but –

The skies above split open. Again.

There was already a gaping hole that opened into sky where the Chitauri were pouring in to this world from wherever in the void that they came from. Even as one who had been in the void with them, been made to serve what it was that lived in the Void….he was not certain what the Chitauri were, nor where they had come from.

But the sky split open, and instead of blue and black, bright gold and orange sliced through the sky.

A sound like a million bells rang out. A flare of light came from the split in the sky, a bright golden glow that made his eyes hurt with the intensity. He turned away, shielding his eyes from the eye-searingly bright light. Even with his eyes closed, he could see orange and gold and crimson light bleeding from the new gash in the sky.

His heart _hurt_ at the colors, because he could not not see them as _her_ colors. She had always been draped in those colors, even if she had not been _wearing_ them. It was just…no matter what, those colors belonged to her. Even as a dragon, she had worn the orange. And her eyes, oh her eyes, maelstroms of fire that had spun and danced, even when still.

Loki winced. He did not want to think about her eyes being still. He did not want to think about her death again.

The golden split in the sky spat once, twice, thrice, then bloomed even brighter, until it challenged even the sun for its light.

When the light faded, the sounds of battle and chaos did too. Loki blinked the spots out of his eyes, shaking his head. His vision returned, and he could see nothing new that had come into the field of combat. This…was no new Chitauri threat.

No, the Chitauri themselves seemed as confused as the drones could ever be confused; turning towards what could be a new threat. Loki knew that they had been on alert for anything approaching their own portal – Stark had been turned away from the portal on his every approach, and the story had been the same for anything sent towards the portal.

So…what was that portal? What had just…

“ ** _YOL TOOR SHUL!!_** ”

Fire roared down streets, melting glass and steel, warping asphalt, leaving it bubbling angrily in its wake.

Loki -Oh, Loki _knew_ that voice. He knew those words. They were from a place far from Midgard, a place that – there was no way for it to – for her to – it could not be real – not really because if it was –

He ran. He left his position, left those who were doing battle around him, and he _ran_.

* * *

The ground was molten mere feet from where he stood, but James Buchanan Barnes was not afraid. The air was thick with the smell of boiling tar, melted plastics, the sharp, ozone-smell of cherry-hot metal.

He was not afraid of any of it.

“I did not…I didn’t think that-” he started, his words coming in faltering Russian before he caught himself and started again, in English. “You _came_.”

The one who had come through the portal in a blaze of light and power, the one who had _died_ , the one who had promised that he had only ever to call her and she would come to his aid, stood there, resplendent in a finery that made even the greatest of the czar’s palaces look as if they had been done in the dust of a poor child’s alley-side hovel.

She blinked only once, turning her gaze to meet his. He felt his knees go weak, and heat bloomed in his chest. He did not turn his eyes away from her, not even as she took a step towards him.

She was not wearing armor, but an ornate robe, and a circlet adorned her brow. Fire opal and carefully faceted obsidian set in gold made up the motif of her jewelry. Bucky stared, his mouth hanging open slightly as awe overwhelmed him.

He licked his lips. She turned her head away from him, her brows furrowing for a moment. A horde of Chitauri rushed them, leaping over the liquefied asphalt towards the two of them.

She lifted a hand, and the world stilled around her. The Chitauri chittered nervously, but before they could really decide how they wanted to deal with this new threat, she hissed a word of…power? Intent? Bucky did not rightly know, but he felt the word sink deep into his flesh, and for a moment, he felt like his death was upon him, like there were a thousand thousand hooks in his consciousness pulling him apart.

And as fast as it started, it stopped. There was no more pain.

He blinked, and turned.

The Chitauri that had been advancing on them were all dead, hands twisted into grasping claws, and faces stuck in grotesque masks.

She regarded the bodies with disinterest, and waited for Bucky to look back at her.

When he did, he saw no recognition in her eyes. She regarded him cooly, but with unabashed interest.

“Who are you, to know my name to call upon it, o Companion from a Far-Off world?”

* * *

Loki was running ragged, trying to find a way towards the person who had said those words, because it had sounded – with the color and the voice and the sky opening – like it could be _her_.

It shouldn’t be. It could not be. She had died. She had died, he had held her as she had died, and he knew she was gone. This was all a trick of the battle, the Chitauri, the Others. It was _something_ but it could not be her.

He had to know who it was.

One of the dragons?

The other two had stayed behind. Maybe it was one of them, maybe it was really just something easily explained, a flaw of the Rainbow Bridge, Heimdall being distracted and fighting his own battles could explain that pretty easily. It could all just be a trick of the light, a mistake because of the horrors of battle. It did not have to mean that she was back.

It could not mean that she was back.

There was another explanation.

There had to be. He could not let himself hope for her to be alive again. The disappointment when he found out the real reason would kill him.

Because right now his heart was beating painfully hard in his chest and hope was flooding his blood like the best drug. He – if it was her – if this was really, actually happening, he was going to –

Dragonsong broke over the cacophony, and from the same place where the portal had opened, the same place the fire had come from, the same place he was _desperately trying to get to_ , he saw a black-scaled dragon take flight.

Fear shot through him.

Hope seared the wounds fear had left behind.

* * *

The battle raged. The Chitauri had a new enemy, one that changed form easily, melding between one they recognized as human and one in a form they had never seen before. Magic, high magic of a power that rivaled anything that Asgard’s finest technology and magic could create roared in the air around the new warrior.

Where once the battle had been evenly matched between the two warring sides, with no clear victor one way or the other, with this new warrior, the tide had slowly begun to turn, and not in the favor of the Chitauri. The drones, chittering in their own frantic language, communicated their new information to the commanders as best they could.

Turns out, even Chitauri are terrified when a massive black-winged dragon rains down fire, ice, death and thunder through streets choked with rubble and bodies already.

Their droning chatter filled the air as the Chitauri screamed terror and fury. The dark portal spat a massive wyrm, one of the huge motherships of the Chitauri. It had nearly been enough when it had been the Avengers alone, to utterly annihilate them.

The massive wyrm coiled down out of the sky, roaring and sending drones flying from its ventral vents, swarming towards the black dragon that stood in opposition to the Chitauri in the moment.

With a scream, the dragon landed atop one of the buildings, wrapping its tail around the top of one of the buildings. It watched, the great spines that lined its back rattling loudly against each other, as the wyrm slithered through the air towards it. The wyrm was a great deal larger than the dragon, but the dragon…

Great black wings spread open wide, blotting the sun out, and shadows set around the dragon’s body.

The roar that ripped from its great throat made the ground tremble.

The wyrm screamed back, but against the great voice that the dragon had summoned, the wyrm’s bugling call seemed…hollow. Small. Not that the Chitauri knew that, or seemed to hear it, but others…others heard the difference. Others knew.

Words, words of power indomitable and impossible poured from the dragon’s mouth, filling the world of Midgard with the power from somewhere else.

The dragon took to the air, wings beating the air and slowly, slowly, slowly, gaining height for the battle between the two great beasts. The dragon’s tail uncurled from the building, sending a rain of glass shards and broken bricks down to the street below it.

The wyrm coiled through the air, the dragon hovered midair, great wings spread wide.

There was a long heartbeat, a still moment that seemed to stretch on forever. Two huge, deadly creatures facing each other down. Behemoth versus behemoth.

Then a second wyrm coiled down out of the portal the Chitauri had created.

Then a third.

The dragon roared again, wheeled, and dove towards the closest wyrm. A golden portal opened behind it, and bright flashes of light spat forth from the portal. The dragon seemed to pay that particular piece of new information no mind, and with a bugling cry, winged off after the great wyrms.

* * *

Loki stumbled, a roar from the dragon above him cutting through his chest, making his knees go weak.

By the time he had caught himself, and recovered from the dragon’s call, he knew he was not alone. He straightened and turned to face whoever it was that had come up to him. He had no idea who it could be, the Avengers and Thor would not have bothered him, even with him having left his position to investigate what was going on. They would understand. They had to.

The battles that raged now skewed heavily in the favor of the Avengers and their assorted alies. Not simply because the Chitauri were distracted by the dragon, but because the dragons battle-magic was wreaking bloody, maddening havoc on the world around them.

Wind blew down the street.

He lifted his eyes. A man garbed in motley, with grey hair and eyes that burned a deep, sickly, yellow stood inches off the ground in front of him. In a hand, a carved cane with screaming heads forming the main face of the foci. The wind wrapped around the two of them, suddenly strong enough to push him towards the man, who only grinned in response, a smile full of sickening madness and depravity.

Loki’s heart dropped into his stomach and his breath caught in the back of his throat.

§ Hello~o Liesmith. So _good_ to see you again. §


	37. Madness

Loki stared.

§Oh none, none of that. You knew I would come back as soon as you failed me. §

His heart gave a lopsided jerk in his chest.

“Oh,” Loki said softly.

§Yes, Oh. You, you know…you remember that I told you that I would come and _find you_ if you failed Her? Remember that? Remember it? §

Sheograth advanced on Loki, power arcing in the air around him. Loki backed away, realization and recognition springing into the forefront of his mind. He remembered the whispering voice, he remembered its tone and texture in his ears. Adrenaline flooded his body. He should fight. He should fight and rage and kill this madman before he was put in any further danger but…

“That is Keshaara,” Loki breathed, hope tinging his voice more than he wanted it to.

He turned away from Sheograth, not caring that it could have been a trap, that he was leaving himself open to attack, that he was doing everything in his power to leave himself vulnerable but the siren call of _hope_ in his chest made _none_ of it matter.

“It is _her_ , it is her. I knew it.”

§Yes. It is her. She came back to Mundus. She returned and she was changed. I told you what would _happen_ if she came back. §

Loki blinked, and looked back to Sheograth.

“What?”

§I fucking _told you_ , Liesmith, the price of your failure. I had to watch her come back, watch her be reborn, in fire and ash, watch the entire world be remade in her shape and image, and watch her _forget_ everything. Her madness? That beautiful madness, the very thing that made her everything to me and more, it is gone now, replaced by a woman who cannot – will not – allow herself to remember where it was she came from. She does what she does of duty and I _told you_ what would happen if you - §

“I did not fail her! She died! I did everything I could to keep it from happening, I had – it was – Akatosh killed her, or something in his death did, and she died in my _arms_ , Sheograth! I watched the life fade from her and there was _nothing_ I could do to keep her safe! Do you think I _wanted_ her to die? That I let her die because I wanted to be rid of her?”

Sheograth snarled at Loki, swinging his cane through the air in front of him. To the side of them both, there was a sharp **pop** -sound. Loki turned sharply to face the sound, and was shocked to see a rabbit with antlers bounding happily down the street from where there had been some manner of vehicle moments before.

A knot started in his throat. That was…a concerning ability.

§It doesn’t matter what you want! It really, really doesn’t. Liesmith. I told you the price of your failure, and here you are, failing. There she is,§ Sheograth swung his odd cane wide, and with another **pop** Loki watched a windowpane turn to cloth, §There is _is_ with no memory of what she had, or what she fought for, or what she has lost. And if it is lost to her, I mean to keep it _lost to her_. §

Loki’s magic shimmered around his hands and he brought them up to defend himself. As much as Sheograth wanted to insist he was the _Liesmith_ , Loki had always prided himself on his silver tongue. And with Keshaara so close, with the tantalizing idea that he could find her again, have her again, be with her again, he was not much keen on the idea of not being able to see her, despite being so close.

He was so close.

§You think you can get away? Fight me? You might have been mad once, might have felt the brief touch of my realm upon your mind but you have no conceptualization of the true madness that I know, that I live in, that I force on others. §

“I’ve fought my way back from the edge of madness before – I could do it again if I had to.”

Loki snarled, spreading his fingers wide and crouching down, preparing for battle. If he had to fight, he was going to fight. He would not be taken away from Her so close to finding – having her again. He was not going to let _anyone_ get in his way.

§You have never faced madness like mine, Liesmith. You have seen but what a _shard_ of me could do, felt but what is a sliver of my power. You watched Keshaara suffer under the pressure of all the daedra as they had once existed. You watched her suffocating in _my_ madness, my gift to her to keep her _sane_ and broke that spell and she suffered for it. I told you I told you _both_ that the suffering was for a point. There was a reason, I know there was a reason for it, I knew there’s been a reason and I do not care that eons have passed, Liesmith. I know you. I remember you. I remember the oath I made. I remember your face. I remember. She won’t. I do. I swore to myself I would remember. And that if there was ever a way back to you I was going to find it. I found it. I found you. And now I’m going to make you suffer for what you’ve done to her. §

Loki took a step back, narrowly missing being hit by whatever strange cane Sheograth held.

“I did not do anything to her! I never wanted this for her. I wanted her to be my _wife_ , I wanted her to be my _Champion,_ I just wanted her in my _life_ , and – and she _died_ , Sheograth! I watched her die, don’t you think that’s painful enough? To watch her die, and never ever be able to tell her that I was alive that I had tried, that all of this had been done to keep her safe-”

 _§BUT YOU DID NOT KEEP HER SAFE. SHE DIED. SHE RETURNED TO SKYRIM. I TOLD YOU THAT YOU WERE NOT TO LET THAT HAPPEN._ §

The street buckled under Sheograth’s feet, kicking up asphalt and concrete down the block. The skyscrapers on either side of the street shuddered and shook in time with the power emanating from the Daedric lord of Madness and Chaos.

Above them, the screams of the dragon and the three wyrms made the worst thunder sound hollow and small.

Loki could hear the tail end of the words of power Keshaara threw around with little care. No care for the power, and as he watched, clearly no care for buildings or structural damage. She crashed through the tops of more than a few (hopefully) evacuated buildings in her dash to get away from one of the wyrms for long enough to turn around and spray fire and ice in equal amounts from her great maw.

Whatever the skyline of this place had been, it was not going to look the same for much longer.

The wyrms showed an equal lack of respect for the skyline of the city, crashing through buildings, slamming into the side of what were probably historical buildings, crushing glass and warping metal beneath their huge bodies. The cacophony of their battle set teeth to grinding and bones to rattling. Loki could not _breathe_ for the glory of it all. This was battle, glorious battle.

Loki turned back to Sheograth, just barely in time to see his cane swinging towards Loki’s head. With a high shout, Loki ducked, throwing his magic up to shield himself from whatever magic hovered in that cane. His shield spells, something he had learned from studying Keshaara, something from Skyirm, something he had not had until he had met her, easily deflected Sheograth’s magic. For a moment, he felt the threads of reality warping around him, trying to sink in, trying to gain dominance and force a madness on his form…

But the feeling passed.

The shield held.

Sheograth’s magic skittered down the street, sending up plumes of purple smoke and red flowers. He _screamed_ , spinning his cane around his hand and preparing to attack again.

“What could I have done?” Loki shouted back, turning the spell’s magic in his hand to block Sheograth’s next strike. “What could I have _done_ to make it different? How can I stop death? How could I stop Akatosh, what could I have done any different to change the outcome?”

He hated how his voice cracked as he screamed, but it did. It did because it hurt. It still hurt him. This all _hurt_.

Loki howled and hurled knives at Sheograth. He was so furious, it was all so unfair and he wanted to make someone else pay for the pain that clawed at his chest every time he breathed. Sheograth wanted him to feel guilt for what had happened, and Loki wanted to make someone pay for it. Sheograth was a god, and Loki was too. A different sort, sure. But he was still a _god_.

§I am not here to tell you what should have done. You were the one put in charge of keeping her alive. Not me. I told you to keep her safe. I told you what would happen if you did not. You did not. And now you are going to pay. §

“That doesn’t make any _sense!_ ”

§I am a god of Chaos. Madness. I am not here to make sense. You were given a charge and you failed. The penalty is death. §

Loki looked beyond Sheograth, to where _Keshaara_ did battle with the Chitauri wyrms. He wanted to watch her, he wanted to never take his eyes off of her so he would not lose sight of her. She was alive right now and he did not want to miss a moment of it now that she was back. He was not going to lose her. Not this close.

* * *

The battle was glorious. A black dragon wheeled through the sky, chased by three wyrms who spat Chitauri drones at odd intervals. The air was choked with bodies and the screams of thousands. It did not matter if it was the screams of Chitauri or of innocents, it was screaming and terror and it was –

 _Delicious_.

Rare was it that the Daedra and Aedra were called upon to do battle alongside the First of Creation.

Rarer still was their presence on somewhere other than their own realms, or the realm of the mortals.

And rarest of all was seeing the First of Creation in Her draconic form, _playing_ with those that would be nothing more than trivial to Her. The Daedra and Aedra both had never seen Her truly battle with every iota of power in Her. She had been before they had been even conceptualized, She was the absolute entity of power and control to the world they came from. She was the First of Creation, indomitable and impossible and everything, _everything_ , to Mundus.

She _was_ Mundus.

The way She fought, the lazy dips and turns She made through the air, seemed almost lackluster. This battle brought no real threat to Her. She was unafraid, but She fought. Sure, there was snap to her movements when one of the wyrms got too close to her, but She had never flown against an enemy that was actually intent upon trying to kill Her.

It was fun. Racing through Mundus, darting between Realms, shaking off the thin veneer of humanity, all of it was enjoyable, but there was a rightness to Her movements here, a joyfulness She had not felt in many ages. This was right. This was just. This was a battle She went to with joy in Her heart, and She did not care to know why.

The skyline of this place was interesting , providing plenty of cover for Her, allowing Her to dodge behind them whenever the wyrms got too close to Her. She led them on a merry chase through the city, marveling at the beauty presented before Her - the new city, the confusing conundrum of one capable of calling Her from Mundus to his side, without ever having known the man, or this place, or anything about this whole multiverse that had suddenly opened to her.

And it all felt _right_. Unnervingly right, like this was where She belonged. A calm had wrapped around Her heart, despite the songs of battle raging around Her and through Her. This was…this was where She could find something that had been lost. Something here called to Her

But their buildings here glittered and gleamed unlike anything in all of the Realms ever had, with huge panes of glass that were in all shades of blue and green. Her wings clipped metal and glass and mortar, and nothing in this world could stand up to Her fury. She did not want anything more than to finally find a field where the truest extent of Her powers could be tested.

But for now, wheeling circles around these wyrms, constantly spitting fire and ice down against their drones – it was enough. It did not slake Her need for battle, or the glorious drum-beating of Her heart, but it was good.

Very good.

There was a soothing aspect to this battle, a sense of rightness She did not expect otherwise, but there were enemies, and She was not free to focus freely on the thoughts that consumed Her. She had battles to win, people to kill, wyrms to destroy.

So she did.

She felt bones snap between her mighty jaws, as if they were nothing more than the frailest of twigs in the forest. The blood was a treat, a great gift to Her, a sacrifice to the First of Creation. It was – oh it was beautiful.

Dragonsong, loud and glorious, spilled from Her chest. The panes of glass that she passed by shattered, vibrating in time with Her singing and then breaking with a loud, loud cacophony. Somehow, it all sounded like proper music together. The song and its accompaniment followed behind Her as she continued Her path through the city.

A wyrm twisted through the air in front of Her, and with hardly any effort at all, She barreled through its body, Her wings slicing through flesh as easily as a knife would. She circled, twisted, wheeled, and sunk Her claws deep into the wyrm’s body.

The power of words and _Creation_ poured out of Her as She tore into it, heaving great chunks of bloodied flesh out of it. Drones screeched, attacking at what they improperly assumed was a vulnerable dragon. Her tail lashed out, catching a number of them and throwing them to the side, careless of their broken bodies.

Nothing stood against Her.

The wyrm’s body crashed to the ground, and She, on top of it.

Victory trilled in Her chest, glory flooded Her veins, for She had WON.

* * *

Loki tried not to stare. Really, he did.

His battle with Sheograth was reaching fever-pitch, magic snapping and cracking through the air around the both of them. Without knowing the exact function of whatever strange artifact Sheograth was using as his primary weapon, Loki knew he needed to keep his attention on the fight to avoid whatever magic was in that cane.

He _really_ did not fancy being turned into a rabbit, like that light pole behind him had been.

But as long as this battle went as it was, he could sneak the occasional glance over his shoulder to where Keshaara, glorious Keshaara, winged Keshaara, his love, his _everything_ was alive and battling. She was stunning and resplendent and he was going to run out of words before he ran out of adulations for her, but as long as Sheograth and he were this evenly matched, he could steal glances of her and wait for support or back up or Her, herself to come to his aid.

§Oh you are afraid of what I can do? You think this is the extent of my abilities? §

Loki snapped his attention back to Sheograth, away from the entrancing view of Keshaara’s sinuous draconic body slicing through the air.

Sheograth grinned, winked, and clicked his tongue. The world around Loki heaved, twisted, and then melted out of view.

* * *

He opened eyes to the Others laughing.

_Oh you thought you had escaped us, did you?_

A pit opened in his stomach and his heart fell through. He looked down, and saw the old armor – the armor he had worn before his imprisonment, before he had lost to the Avengers, before…before what?

_No, no, you are still quite here with us. And you will be. Forever. You owe us a great number of things, **Laufeyson** and we would have them all of you. _

He shook his head, slowly standing, uncertain what had just happened. It all felt like a dream, like, for a moment, the world had been right. Not that he had not done this, not that he had been avenged or that he had ruled in glory, but that he had found a happiness that no one could take from him, that he had found something more precious than a crown.

Ridiculous.

It was ridiculous, a dream he had no use for. There was a crown at stake, glory and revenge all at play. This was…it did not matter how little he trusted the Others. Their army of Chitauri was going to be vital to the assault on the Avengers. Then he could give them what they wanted while he took the crown that was, by all rights, his.

He would rule.

He would be _King_.

He would prove to them all that he was right, that his rule was just.

He was going to _win_ all of this. And damn the costs of it in the end, damn whatever happened to anyone else, he would take what was _his_ with fire. With blood. With glorious battle and twisted scheming. He was going to take it all.

It was the only thing he ever wanted.


	38. Reunite

The world crashed in around him. There was a battle raging. All around, with the air throttled with bodies of Chitauri.

Loki exhaled, a grin working its way across his face.

This was _right_.

Just like this, this was everything ne needed and nothing he did not need. He, he needed this. Oh _Gods_ he needed this.

There was a cackle from behind him, something that made him think that perhaps something was wrong, perhaps he had forgotten something in between seeing the Others last, and this moment. Like something…like something that had been found had just slipped through his fingers.

He shook his head, closing his eyes and pressing the heel of his palm to his forehead. He pushed in, trying to stave off a headache or a nosebleed or both, whatever it was that was building pressure behind his eyes.

ΩSheograth, what is this?Ω came a voice.

 _The sound of a thousand bells, the ringing of a thousand gongs, I missed that **voice**_.

Loki pulled his hands away from his face.

A woman was approaching, the dust of battle still stuck to her skin, a smear across her lower lip that begged for further investigation. Her hair whipped around her, russet-red and brown, and her eyes danced a thousand shades of red, orange and yellow all at once.

His heart nearly stopped beating.

She was…gorgeous.

And she brushed past him with hardly a thought. She was wearing no armor, only ornate robes that nearly hurt his eyes to look upon with their finesse and glory. Her eyes did not even turn to meet his, and something in Loki ached for her attention.

He liked being paid attention to.

He liked feeling important and he mostly liked when other important people paid attention to him. She was an important person. She _had_ to be. There was not a damn thing he could doubt about that. She walked with the force and power of one who bore the weight of royalty on her shoulders and her casual grace with it made him see stars.

ΩSheograth, I expect an _answer_ , now answer me! Ω

§My dearest-§

ΩNone of the sugar-roll talk, Sheograth. Explain yourself. This one, Ω  the woman said, pointing back to Loki. ΩTastes of your magic, and the madness in him is not just his own. Ω

§You must understand, this was something that-§

ΩI would understand easier if you spoke plainly, Sheograth. Ω

Sheograth chuckled, waving a hand. Loki saw a myriad of colors dance in his eyes and had to turn away or be overwhelmed by the nausea that roiled in his gut at the sight. Shaking his head, he turned back to the battle the Chitauri were raging.

That’s right, he was orchestrating a battle and then – well he was winning, wasn’t he? The city was smoking ruins around him, and Chitauri dominated the sky. He knew…he knew that…no this wasn’t right.

§You don’t know what is at play here, I am sorry for this, but it is necessary. §

ΩAre you saying you have business in this realm? This place we have never been? I find that passing hard to believe, Sheograth.Ω

Loki blinked. Something was bothering him. Something about this situation was wrong. He was missing some piece of information. Sheograth knew him. Sheograth. Sheograth was not anyone he should know. Right? He should not know anyone by the name of Sheograth, let alone anyone fitting his description. He did not…

What was happening?

§I am sorry, O First, but it is truth. Maddening truth. I must confess, there are things that I know that not even you recall, O First and All-Glorious. §

The woman grinned, and reached out to clasp the man on the shoulder.

ΩI do not doubt your foibles are many and far-reaching, my Knight, but you must remember that as we are in a place we do not know, your connectiveness to this place is cause of some minor concerns. Especially when you seem so intent upon this one. Who is he? Ω

Loki stepped forward, but Sheograth held a hand up. A roll of thunder rumbled through his chest and his voice left him entirely. He found himself standing, mouth agape, and completely incapable of saying a word to the woman who looked upon him with fire-touched eyes.

 _You know her_ , something whispered to him, a voice deep down that sounded, in echoes, like his own.

But he did not. He would remember her. Anyone would remember looking upon someone like _her_.

He did not know her.

 _You do_.

The contrasting information was maddening. In one moment, he was Loki, wreaker of havoc, commander of the great Chitauri army, the one responsible for the swift-approaching downfall of the Avengers. In the next, he looked at the two Chitauri wyrms that still spiraled through the sky and thought that there was something wrong about that. Something had happened that made him think of things he could not possibly know.

One of the great wyrms caught sight of the three of them – the woman, Sheograth, and Loki, and with a roar that shook what little glass remained in the windowsills, rushed them.

Sheograth shouted, spinning his cane up, Loki prepared to dodge, his armor wrapping around him and the woman –

She casually stepped forward, golden light pouring from the air around her.

In a blaze of truest glory, she garbed herself in armor.

Proper armor, true armor, summoned out of nothingness like Loki’s was. A great helm adorned her head, with two forward-facing horns, like that of a bull’s –

 _Nchuand-Zel, she rested her horned helm against the wall and gathered her breath. She squared her shoulders. She was_ ΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩ.

The heavy armor, chased in gold looked more capable of taking a beating than any armor any of the others wore. She was a woman, a ruler of something, who knew, but she was _also_ powerful. No matter if the armor was magick’d to be lighter on her body, it looked heavy. Brutal. Gold, orange, and charcoal grey dominated the color scheme.

He could not help but think they would look good together.

The wyrm roared, opening its mouth wide, and the great maw that greeted him sent a spear of fear through his chest. The woman seemed completely nonplussed by the wyrm, lifting a hand. Power shimmered in the air around her hand, coalescing into a shimmering purple wall. The wyrm slammed into the shield, ripples of power shooting out from the impact point.

_Her shields, he had studied them for hours in her absence, trying to learn the magic of it. He had mastered it, he had thought, enough to protect himself, enough to buy him time to move and reorient. It had made him feel close to her in their time apart. He…_

The woman reached forward, magic and seiðr warping around her hands. She gripped the air and **pulled** it apart. The wyrm shuddered, its head jerking upwards as it tried to get away from whatever magic it was that had wrapped around it. That did not save it. With a horrible screech and the sound of rending flesh, the wyrm split in two.

Blood and gore sprayed outward in a sickening wash of battle.

Loki…did not know if he had ever been more attracted to someone, in any moment, at all, ever.

_She walked out of the bathouse, hair still barely damp, the smell of juniper and oak and pine. Snowflakes graced her head, a crown of glittering ice on her brow. She turned back to look at him, a flush on her cheeks from the hotsprings they had just left. She grinned, flashing teeth only slightly too sharp to be believably human, and her eyes sparkled. Oh, he could-_

Loki took a shuddering breath in, a shiver racing down his spine. There was something in her every movement that spoke to him. He craved her attention, her affections, her everything. His left hand dropped to his belt, and where there had once been a knife hilt, there was…a small box. Palm-sized and warm with his own magic, Loki did not recognize the object.

From behind him, he heard Sheograth _hiss_.

ΩWhat is this, Sheograth? Why are you so upset, the magic in that object belongs to him. Ω

§It is nothing, nothing O Most Glorious One. I thought I saw something else in his movement and magic for but a moment and thought there was something more to what he has. §

The woman cocked her head off to the side. Loki took a step away from her, clutching the box to his chest, suddenly unwilling to allow these two people any closer to him. Not while he was holding this box. The box was important to him. He knew nothing about the box, he knew nothing about them, or the magic or why he had this box, but no one was supposed to touch it. No one, not ever.

 _Only one_.

ΩVery well then. Sir, show me that item, if you please. I should investigate it. Ω

_Her._

He handed it over to her without a second thought, pressing the box into her palm. Their skin touched for the barest moment. He jerked his hand away from her, looking for the burns that had to have lanced across his skin for all the pain he felt searing his flesh at her touch.

There was nothing.

She looked the box over, turning it in her hands, her brows furrowing as she looked at it. The sounds of battles still raging around them could not distract him from staring in abject wonder at the woman. That box was full of his magic, and it did not matter to him that he could not place where that magic had come from other than “him”. She looked at the box, and it felt like she was looking straight through him. Loki bit his lip.

Her fingers slid over the carefully carved runes and reliefs, and Loki knew them intimately, like he knew any part of himself. Magic hovered in the air around her, coalescing into the shape of stars. The stars of the Nine Realms snapped into view, and as her fingers moved over the box, they shifted, showing the view of the stars in the sky from each of the Nine Realms. There was a tenth star field, with auroras wrapping through the stars, in shades of green and gold.

ΩThis…this has the stars…I remember these stars. Who are you? Ω

His voice stuck in his throat. He did not know how to talk to her. All of his words crowded in the back of his throat. Questions, demands, glorious exultations, all vied for dominance and he did not know which to give words to first, so he settled on saying nothing and just staring.

She smiled at him, a quirk of her lips that made bright shades of gold shoot through her irises.

Loki’s knees went weak. His eyes fluttered, his breath caught in his chest.

That was _beautiful_.

ΩYou are grinning, sir. Who are you? How do you know these stars? Ω

“I…I don’t know…” he said, honesty coloring his words and making him blush anew.

Why he was blushing, he could not even really articulate. Something about her asking him these questions, and him coming up utterly short made him flush. He should know the answer to why he had made something so otherwise unlike himself to make – and to put it where he had once kept one of his favorite knives on his belt? What was this?

He did not know. The admittance did not scare him as much as he thought it should.

ΩBut this is yours? Ω

“Yes,” he paused. “No? It’s not mine.”

ΩThose are both possible responses, yes. Ω

He felt himself blushing anew, and he had no idea why he was. She took another step towards him, and through the haze of blinding and combative needs and emotions, Loki noticed something. Across her chest, there was a blaze of color that stood out in stark relief against the gold and orange and grey.

His color. Green.

Had he not known better, he would have said that that splash of green belonged to one of his cloaks. A new one. Hastily, he looked down, confused by the color and the shocking sense of familiarity and longing that speared through his chest. His cloak was missing a piece, one that matched the green splash of cloth across her heart. How…did he miss that. What had happened to his cloak? When had this happened?

She seemed to have noticed the same thing he had, stepping closer to him, far within the boundaries of personal space, reaching out to grasp his cloak and pull the missing corner up. Carefully, she ran her finger over the ragged edge of his cloak. Loki let her. He did not start to pull away, or try and stop her. He wanted her touch. He let her stand so very close to him, breathe the same air as he was, and hold the corner of his cloak in her hand.

In her other hand, a box of his magic he could not remember ever making. He had made it though. He knew that much. It was his magic. Careful, precise, and exacting. Everything he prided himself on. But he could not remember it, or the making of something that would have – should have – taken him days, if not weeks of work, and he just could not remember any time where he had made such a thing.

Gently, he reached up to cup the box and her hand with his own, lacing his fingers around her wrist. Her skin was so hot against his, but this time, he did not flinch away from the heat.

Her breath caught, and he swallowed a knot in his throat. He did not know her, but the box, and the green slash and all of these other things made him think that he _should_ know her. He should know her. He knew the dip of her wrist, he knew the gentle hollow of her throat –

 _He had slid his mouth over that point, his tongue catching the taste of her skin_ –

He knew her.

Why did he know her?

ΩWho are you? Ω

“Loki! **Keshaara**?!”

Loki turned to see his brother – no, not his brother, _Thor_ , his hated enemy – _no he is my brother, always my brother_ – approaching, hand lifted high in greeting. The woman, Keshaara, apparently, _she told you her name and you stole a kiss and she stole your breath and life in that moment_ , did not let go of his cloak, or the box. He did not either. Just looked at Thor, warring emotions rising up in his chest, and waited, and wondered.

ΩAnother who knows the Old Name. Who are all of you? Ω the woman asked, not moving away from Loki either.

Her skin was still so _hot_ against Loki’s but he did not want to take his hands from hers. There was an iciness in his chest that had always been there, and he had only just learned the reason for, but she made him feel something warm again.

“Keshaara, it is so GOOD to see you back! We had watched you die, and your body left us before we could bury it. Loki had mourned you , but here you are!” Thor said, bright and boisterous, bounding forward towards the both of them.

_She died. I mourned her._

He shook his head.

From behind him, he heard Sheograth growl again, and heard the whistling of a swinging weapon and then –

ΩSTILLNESS, Sheograth! Ω Keshaara snapped, her voice one of Command. Loki looked at her, and her eyes flashed crimson and vermillion for the briefest moment before slowly seeping back into orange. He did not need to turn back to look at Sheograth. He knew that no one moved against her will. No one ever could.

Her voice froze the world around them, and all the sounds of battle stopped. Thor stopped in his tracks, looking at Loki, Keshaara and Sheograth with eyes wide.

Ω _YOU_ , Struntufel. You tell me what you know of me. You tell me _now_. Ω

Thor shuddered, turning his head from her.

ΩTell me how I know your name, tell me why you are named by my tongue, how do I _know you_? Ω

“Keshaara, you…forgot? Loki and you, you were his Champion. He came to you where you are from, then called you to Asgard, then-”

“Kesh!”

Bucky ran around a corner, rushing towards them all. Sheograth hissed, words that Loki heard and translated. How, he still did not know, but he knew what was being said. And he knew it was a language he had no justification for knowing.

 _§HOW DARE YOU ALL TALK TO HER?!_ §

ΩWhat _is_ this, Sheograth? Ω

The sounds of battle raged anew, a cacophony that hurt Loki’s ears to hear. Why were they fighting again? What was this? Chitauri, but he was not in control. No, he had been defeated when he had been their leader. That was a long time ago. He had been put in prison…he had been.

He pulled his hands from Keshaara’s, took a step back from her and looked at her again. Really looked at her. With orange eyes, and armor, and…and…

§This was never supposed to happen! Never again! I swore never again, I swore I would stop this travesty from continuing! §

He watched Keshaara’s eyes narrow dangerously. Lances of cherry-hot red slashed through her irises as her fury built, a quiet storm in her chest that leaked power into the air around her.

ΩI know these people. Sheograth, I _know_ them. How do I know these people. How have I been here before? How do I know that he, Ω she said, pointing to Bucky, ΩIs my friend, my companion? That he brought me tea? That we sat beneath a tree and ate pizza? That I know what _pizza_ is? How do I know this? How did I forget this? Ω

Sheograth snarled, spinning his cane around, preparing for some sort of attack. Keshaara lifted a hand , and the cane exploded into a thousand splinters. Loki flinched away, and Sheograth’s mouth hung agape. Her jaw was set, and fury was writ into her every bone. She released her grip on his cape and her hand drifted down, towards an axe at her belt –

_She only ever used her axe. I remember that axe. Her favored weapon, the one she defeated Gods with, the one she defended me with, the one she carried with her throughout it all._

§Wh-§

ΩWhat. Did. You. Do. To. Me. Ω

§You have to understand -§

ΩWHAT DID YOU DO TO ME, SHEOGRATH?! Ω

Keshaara stormed past Loki, and he was buffeted away from her by sheer force of her power. He staggered, and before he could recover, Keshaara had Sheograth by the throat, holding him high. Magic unlike anything Loki had ever seen – _no not true, you have seen the brunt of her rage before, remember, remember_ – arched around her.

§It’s not – you must understand, O First and Glorious, that I had to. Your soul was still bound and I had to ensure that we would survive, I thought that you would be able to-§

ΩYOU DESTROYED ME AND REBUILT A FALSE IDOL. Ω

§No! Not like that, it was not like that. I only wanted-§

ΩI HAD TRUSTED YOU. Ω

The world shook, great upheavals of stone and glass shaking out from her. But even as things fell apart around them, nothing came close to hitting Loki, Thor, or Bucky. Shields sparked around them, knocking huge chunks of debris to the side of them. He remembered that magic. Learning it. Watching her use it, and deciding to take something of it for himself.

Loki blinked dust out of his eyes.

He remembered.

He _remembered_.

§You don’t understand.. You don’t understand! You don’t know how many times I watched and waited for the Cycles to end and Akatosh always brought us back. I thought that by using you, that by giving you a power no one had ever had, by bringing someone whose madness could touch you, change you, unmake you and remake you into a weapon I could use to stop it. I just wanted rest, O First and Glorious, I -§

ΩYOU GAVE ME LOVE AND TOOK IT AWAY? FOR _YOUR OWN GAIN_. Ω

§I wanted to be done! I wanted there to be nothing more! I was _tired_! §

ΩTHEN. HAVE. YOUR. REST. Ω

In a shower of blood, Keshaara ripped Sheograth’s throat out with her bare hands. Ichor soaked her armor, dripping from the ornate carvings, and her face.

She roared, and the world shook around her once again. Loki watched her, struck by the whole moment. He remembered her. He remembered himself and herself as they were together. As they had been. The entirety of everything they had done together.

Skyrim. Her touch, hesitant on his skin, a hot spring, and her teeth in his shoulder. Daedra. Aedra. A den of vampires, a night of ecstasy so that she could bear a child – and she _did,_ they had a _son_. A sacrifice that no one should have ever asked her to make. And she sent him home.

Asgard. He called her, and she came. Exhausted, worn to the bone, worn down by centuries of living, but came alive again under his touch. Battle-torn, weary, and when she slept in his arms, the world as all right again. Battling for his honor, winning. Fighting dragons and her nature, losing her magic, losing her life at his hands, coming back, and then…he had to leave. He _had_ to leave.

Earth. He watched her struggle. He watched her and he visited her when he could, he loved her as best he could. He watched her lose herself. Watched her die. Held her as she died again and mourned her because she was _gone_ again and he had to live without her because he did not think she was coming back. And she had not. Not in a way that had remembered him and he had been hurt by that.

And now.

Now.

Keshaara turned towards him, her eyes bright and dangerous. He opened his mouth, a thousand apologies on the tip of his tongue, an explanation of what he had done, why he had done what he had done, why he had loved her enough to let her think he was dead, why he had not come back fast enough to save her from Sheograth’s machinations.

She grabbed him by the back of his neck and pulled him into a kiss.

His lips met hers and stars exploded behind his eyes.

He kissed her, and the rest of the world fell away. It was just the two of them. He wrapped an arm around her waist, holding  her to him with all the strength he had in his body. She was here _now_ and he was never going to be without her again. Not now, not ever again.

The sounds of battle ceased to be. He did not care to look to see if it was because they had been taken elsewhere, or if the fight had stopped, or if the entire world had stopped.

Keshaara kissed him, and her mouth tasted of the blood of the God who had warped them both. This had been the grand game of someone else, a revenge plot beyond the both of them. The hand of madness had been in this from the very beginning but it did not matter.

Nothing mattered.

Air popped in his ears, but there was no tearing his mouth from hers. Tears poured freely down his cheeks, and before he could try and cover them, try and walk back from the overwhelming emotion in him, he heard Keshaara sob his name against his mouth.

Her hands remained on the back of his neck, and she pulled his mouth against hers hard enough for it to almost, almost hurt. She was just as afraid of letting him go and finding him to be nothing more than a mistake, a hallucination, a figment of imagination as he was. She kissed him with the ferocity of love unending, kissed him like he was the only thing she had ever wanted to kiss in her entire life, and Loki knew in that moment, that no matter what Sheograth had done, she _did_ love him.

When she finally pulled away, when Loki finally drew a breath that did not taste like hers, he had to blink a thousand bright pinpoints of light out of his eyes.

She stood in front of him, tears streaming unabashedly down her face, alive and warm and regal, and surrounding him, the Daedra and Aedra of her realm. He could not see Thor, or any of the Avengers, or anyone but the glowing godly visages of those who were now…Keshaara’s contemporaries.

At their first meeting, he had been the God, and she the weak mortal. But now…Loki rather felt that his own godhood paled in comparison to what it was that Keshaara was in this moment. He did not even know if he had words for what he felt when he looked upon her, wreathed in the trappings of power.

“Loki,” she said simply, her voice soft and gentle, and not the voice of Storms and Fury.

“Keshaara.”

She smiled, and the sun seemed to dim before the brilliance of her joy.

“I missed you.”

Keshaara kissed him again, sweeter this time, without the crush of desperation. It felt so _right_ to have this again, and he knew that there would be stories to tell, and words to say, and explanations to give, but right then, in that moment, nothing – nothing mattered.

“I missed you too,” Loki replied, and his lips did not taste of lies, but of her own breath.

“We have much to talk about, my love.”

 _My love_ , and she said it so simply, like it was a mundane truth that she loved him. It did not matter that it was the first time that she had said such a thing to him, directly, nor that it was the first time she had draped that epithet across his body. Loki felt naked in that moment, standing before someone who so easily confessed her adoration for him.

“But first, I think, we should handle this battle,” Keshaara said, kissing him once again before pulling away and turning her gaze back to the chaos that roared around them.

Loki wanted to object, wanted to draw her attention  back to him, back to only him, he wanted to talk about everything that had happened, everything that could happen, everything that would come to be in the future.

She and he were of two separate places, and now she was inexorably tied to Tamriel, Mundus, Skyrim, still…

He shook his head. This was not the time for that. Keshaara smiled at him, and nothing else mattered.

They were not going to be parted, not ever again. He was hers, and she was his. No matter what else happened, that was going to be true. They were never going to lose each other, not ever again.


	39. The End

The concentrated efforts of them all turned the Chitauri back. Keshaara’s companions, the Gods that had once ruled her fate and now bent knee to her, all of them, and Keshaara herself easily destroyed what remained of the Chitauri threat. The city was in ruins, buildings left as smoking husks and twisted metal.

Dead bodies, of both Chitauri and humans lay twisted in the streets.

There would be mourning and wailing and funerals that seemed nigh unending after this. Thor advised Loki to leave for Asgard, and Loki knew that it was the most prudent course of action. The humans, they would not understand what it was that had happened, they would only see the danger that Thor and Loki and the rest of the Nine Realms had brought to them, and no matter the explanations, there would not be anything to soothe them for a long while.

The Avengers, even, sought to hide themselves from the public eye, for as always, they would be questioned as to why they could not stop these machinations, why civilians had to die and why they had not died in protection of those weaker than they.

It was the constant of war. The heroes became the halfhearted villains as the dust settled and rebuilding began.

But…there was something unfinished.

Loki approached Keshaara, who was standing in robes that looked more carefully designed, created, and worn than anything else he had ever worn. She was a God in truth. Not simply because she had magic, or a long life, or more knowledge. Not like he was a God to the humans. No, she turned to look at him, her eyes shimmering a thousand thousand colors all at once, and Loki _understood_ what Godhood was.

“Loki,” she said, a small smile on her lips. How she had _missed_ him. It had been eons. She had been made to forget. But she knew him. She remembered him. She loved him.

All of these things were true but that did not change another truth –

“I cannot remain here, my beloved.”

Loki nodded. He knew this would come. She was a God. There were responsibilities wrapped in that. Even Odin could not escape those responsibilities, and Loki doubted Odin’s ability to command Keshaara to abdicate her own.

That knowledge did not stop the hard knot that formed in his throat.

She was _here_ with _him_ , right _now_. This was where she belonged. With him.

“I must return. I have responsibilities – a whole universe of people, of living and dead. Gods, monsters, and everything in between. I cannot abandon them, I have seen what an absent supreme one will do. How chaos will be sown at even the smallest interval. By calling all of the Daedra and Aedra both here, and fighting, even for as short a time as this feels, I am certain I have doomed my world…it is my fault. I must return.”

He nodded, slowly. This was expected. It had to be expected. He had lost his chance to be with her because of his own hubris. Everything came back to his pride. Everything he had lost had been because of his own goddamn –

“Loki.”

He looked up. Keshaara reached for both of his hands and pulled him close to her.

“Come with me.”

“What?”

His voice came out small, colored with disbelief.

“Come with me. Come back to Mundus. Be with me there.”

The knot in his throat vanished, replaced with a pit of apprehension. Could he leave? Leave everything, and go be with her in Skyrim, or whatever realm she inhabited now? Leave the responsibility, the crush of knowledge, everything he had set up, worked for, and against? Would that –

“I can’t, Kesh…I can’t leave. I have to stay. I…”

She laughed, brushing hair out of his eyes and pressing a lingering kiss to his brow.

“I understand, Loki. I do. Were I different, had this not happened, if…many things were different, I would not leave. But I must. ”

He nodded. They both had responsibilities. A God of Madness had first crafted their meetings, and guided so much of what they had become together. Madness were the thoughts that deluded them into thinking they could be together.

“I sent the others away already, back to the world that needs them. I am expected to return, to do what I can to salvage what may be a realm torn by war and strife. It is just you and I for the time being.”

Loki held her in his arms, and tried to find the words he wanted for this moment. She was here, and he loved her, and he did not want her to leave. But she would leave. Because she had to. They had responsibilities and there was no denying that their responsibilities pulled them in different directions. This was a doomed love. One that should have never come to pass. One that destroyed one Realm in its entirety, only to be rebuilt again. They should have never met. Too much had been changed, too many threads of Fate severed. Had they not met, had Keshaara’s heart not wound itself around his, had Loki not been turned from thoughts of Conquest, who knows what great and terrible things may have come to pass, what could have been lost, what could have been forever changed.

But not even the truest of loves could stop the tides of responsibility. They were both of them, tied to completely different places. Different times, different people, different Gods, and different responsibilities. To be together would be to doom one realm or another. To be together would bring them joy unending and unimaginable pain to all else.

He did not want to let go of her.

“Kesh, I…I promise I did not leave you with thoughts of never returning. I was coming back for you. I wanted to be with you. I tried to be with you. As much as I could. As much as I could bear to be.”

It was not the apology he had wanted to make. No, he had had hopes for a better one, one full of the many multitudinous explanations, hours of holding her close to him in his bed, smoothing her hair with one hand as he apologized for everything he had ever done that had caused them to be separated. Without that chance…this was the best he could hope for.

“I…know, Loki. I understand. I had hoped for more time. For us to be together. That night before you had left…it was truly one of the happiest in my life. That life, and this life. I had hoped to find you in Sovengard after I had defeated Akatosh, and found myself elsewhere, instead. I just…forgot after an eon or two, I think. There’s only so much heartache an immortal can take before it poisons everything. I would hate to bring harm to those mortals under my care, because I never forgot what it was to be made a tool of those I could not understand.”

Loki nodded, kissing her cheek, her temple, her forehead, and then her lips. He understood why, or could understand why, things had happened the way they had. But that did not stop his heart from aching at the thought of being parted from her again.

It was not fair. It was not fair in the slightest that he had her and would have to be taken from her again. He wanted her. He wanted her to be with him, and there was a deep dark part of his greed and jealousy that did not care in the slightest what the consequences were. Keshaara was his, _his_ , and he did not want to lose her. And he had to lose her. That was for the best. For both of their realms.

He took a deep, shuddering breath.

“I love you, Keshaara.”

She looked at him, tears flowing freely down her cheeks.

“I love you too, Loki. Forever. Always. With everything in me.”

Loki closed his eyes. He couldn’t look at her and say goodbye. He was not strong enough to do that. If he watched her, if he looked at her and tried to say goodbye, the only thing that would come out of his mouth would be a hundred reasons why she should stay, consequences be damned, and all else be damned with it.

A sob ripped out of his throat, and he hugged her tight. He wanted her to stay. He wanted to go with her. She wanted to stay. She wanted him to come with her. All of it was too much. It hurt too much, to love like this. Love hurt, and hurt dearly. But Loki could not bring himself to even think of not loving her as much as he did. He did not want the world to take this love away.

He only ached for a way to make the pain go away.

There was no solution. They were going to be separated.

This was the end of the line. This was not some romance story, this was his life. His life and it was never going to have a happy ending. It should have just been enough to see her again, to know she was alive, to know that no matter what, he had not ruined everything with his thoughtlessness…but now that he had that much, he wanted more. He wanted her to be with him, he did not want to be away from her, and most of all, he wanted to not let her go.

Every last bit of him did not want to say goodbye. Because it was going to be the last goodbye. There was nothing else that could be done. He had to find the strength to say goodbye and know it was the last time he would ever see her. It was goodbye. It was goodbye for real. Forever. There was…nothing else.

“I do not want to say goodbye, Keshaara,” he said, his voice rough with emotion.

“I do not want to leave, Loki. I want to stay with you. But I cannot. I am…bound to Mundus. I have to go back. I have to…my responsibility.”

He nodded, holding her closer, trying to memorize the feel of her body against his. This was the end. The end of it all. The glory and the misery both. This was the _end_.

“I know. I know. You have a job. I want you to do it. I do. I promise you, I want you to accomplish your purpose. I know you have…so much to do. So much falls to you, and you are…glorious. I wish…there’s so much I want right now. I don’t know, I just don’t…I don’t want to say goodbye.”

Keshaara sagged against him, holding herself up against him, her body pressed tight to him.

This was the last time.

The absolute last time.

A golden rift opened up behind her. Loki held her tighter to him in defiance of the obvious exit from these realms. She had come, wreathed in golden light, and now she had to leave. He had to leave, to return to his own home, to face the facts of what he had done, his mother, and everyone else that he had abandoned to undo what he had done.

The rift spat golden light, and Keshaara pulled him tight.

“I-” Loki started, trying to find the words to help her leave, and before he could even try to tell her anything, her lips were on his again.

She kissed him with the intensity of a star about to supernova, holding him steady against her, demanding, but not forceful. Loki grabbed the back of her neck, and he crushed her against him, desperation and _lust_ burning his blood all at once. He wanted her. He wanted her right now.

The feeling was clearly mutual. She grabbed the front of his collar with both hands, pulling him forward. Their teeth hit, the pain rattled through his jaw, but her mouth was still on his. Her hips rolled against his, and he felt pleasure shoot up his spine.

He moaned into her mouth and she responded in kind. The world trembled in time with the rumbling of her moan. Loki almost sobbed for the delirium of his desire. He shook with need, biting her lip, sweeping his tongue into her mouth, and she whimpered his name.

“Tell me to stay, Loki. Tell me to stay with you. Please. _Please_. I did not ask for this, did not ask to be Dovahkiin, did not ask to be immortal twice over, did not ask for _any_ of this. I want to be with you. Tell me to stay. Just ask. Please. My love, please just ask me to stay with you.”

Her voice broke, and the kiss tasted of salt-bitter tears. His heart shattered, he wanted to give her the relief she asked for, he wanted to play the selfish villain and tell her to stay with him, to be that person, to just let go of all of their responsibility and keep her with him. Just take that last little bit of selfishness and leave everything else to its own machinations.

“I can’t,” he whispered against her mouth, and what remained of his heart _hurt_ at the admission.

He could not do it. He could not take that choice from her, could not demand that she stay. It would destroy both of them to have that looming in the background. They had their responsibilities. Their choice. It was time for a cold heart. It was time for courage. This was the time to be the sort of hero that no one else could be.

“You have to go, Keshaara. You said it yourself. They need you.”

“I need **you** , Loki.”

He kissed her again. The tears were flowing freely down both their faces now. There was no stopping this. This was it. Doom and despair. Stars-crossed lovers never had happy endings. Hoping that they could find happiness? That was selfish.

Gods, they were selfish. They had been selfish from their first moments that they had allowed feelings to bloom between them, selfish from the first moment that Jyggalag had promised…they had been selfish. He was so _good_ at being selfish.

But he could not be selfish now. Neither of them could afford to be. Billions of lives hung in the tender balance of the set of their shoulders, and the strength of their own convictions.

“I am sorry, Keshaara. If it had been different…”

He did not even know where to go from there. What could he say next? That if it were different, he would go with her, he would ask her to stay, they would have never met, none of this would have happened? That was all true. If things had been different, they would have never been put in this position.

“I know. Believe me, Loki. I know. I know and I wish this was all different. But it is not. And that is the tragedy.”

Her lips brushed his painfully softly, and then she was gone. Golden light flowed through the air around them both, there was a whisper, and then nothing.

A heavy weight thumped against his chest, and for a moment, Loki thought it was his heart. It felt right to think of his heart as lead now, because Keshaara was gone again. Even if he knew he could call her back – she had come to Barnes’ side, it was clearly possible. Even if her name had changed, even if everything about her had changed. He could…

But he would not

He dropped to his knees, reaching up to press his hand to his heart. His hands met warm metal, and he looked down.

An amulet of Mara, shimmering in the finest gems and metalwork, hung from the same chain his warped talisman Keshaara had given him the day she had been abducted by the Dark Elves and Jotuns. A marriage gift.

She had said the two of them were married.

She had said she had wanted to give him one. That it would be close enough. That even if the two of them had not been married in the way of her people, she would count it and would be his wife.

The gift was too much. It was sweet and bitter, and it hurt him so deeply to see it hanging there.

He covered the amulet with both hands and closed his eyes against the deluge of tears that poured from him.

Being the hero, doing the right thing – it _hurt_.

* * *

He went back to Asgard. Told Frigga the good news. Keshaara was alive. But gone from them, a Goddess in her own right, one that must serve the needs of the mortals under her care. She was a powerful woman, a beautiful woman, who had again, saved them all, and left him with a huge hole in his heart.

He had been left to his second mourning, so soon after the first. He could not know if she was alive, now that she was gone. Gods had been killed before, Keshaara herself had killed a God before, if not more than one, he was still uncertain as to what the Daedra and Aedra were in comparison to the one that had been called Akatosh.

It did not matter.

Loki wore her amulet and did everything he could to help the Realms he had come so close to destroying safe. He travelled hither and thither, he visited Odahviing and Durnehviir, neither of whom had felt Keshaara enter the realm, and in fact, felt as if they had been cut from the very fabric of the reality of Mundus. They still had their voices and some small magics, but they could not become dragons as they had once been.

Odahviing seemed passing pleased with that, growing ever closer to Dómhildr as the months, and eventual years wore on.

 The pain he felt never lessened but he grew accustomed to it.

When it got too much to bear, he would rub his fingers over the intricacies of the carving of his Amulet, imagining he could feel her fingers touching his through the yawning void of time and space that separated them.

And make no mistake, Loki was painfully aware of the great amount of time that separated them. Eons passed for her in years for him. He knew that there was an ever increasing likelihood that he would end up never knowing when she finally passed on from advanced age – or even worse, if she ended up forgetting him entirely.

The amulet never lost its heat, either. There were uncountable nights that he spent curled around the amulet, soaking in the warmth like it was some weak facsimile of Keshaara herself.

He despaired, but he persevered. It was not only what Keshaara would have wanted of him, but it was now what he expected of himself. She had shown him what true heroism could be. And he wanted to be courageous like her. Not because he wanted the glory, but because in those moments, where he was brave and solid when he wanted to shrink away and skulk, he felt close to her again. He felt like she could be proud of him.

It was a morning like the thousands of mornings that had passed since he had last seen Keshaara. He had awoke in his rooms, her amulet on the bed next to him, swung the chain back on, letting the amulet come to rest on his chest. A familiar weight, it comforted him as he went about bathing and dressing for the day. Bright and clear were the skies, and even if he wanted to not think about Keshaara, the clear sky reminded him too much of painful dreams he had done his best to try and forget.

Well, no. Not forget. He never wanted to forget a single moment of Keshaara’s life. There may be no one else who ever would remember her as he did, and he did not want the brilliance that was the woman he loved to be forgotten to the annals of uncaring history.

But they were dreams that made him profoundly heartsick.

Loki blinked the tears out of his eyes, looked himself over in the mirror, and carefully cast restorative magic over the jasmine flowers he kept in the dish of fragrant water near his window. She had liked the jasmine. He remembered her wearing jasmine in her still-wet hair after his mother had found the two of them in the baths.

The smell comforted him.

He steeled himself for another day. It was not going to be one that needed too much of him, many of his plans had long lain in wait, as the Realms around him cycled through their own daily rhythms. Patience, always patience as he worked through his many and multitudinous plans.

It was always one step in front of the other, though. He could not allow his thoughts to get too far from him, or else he would lose himself to a despair that always seemed mere moments from spilling out of him in either a fit of tears or a fit of rage.

Sometimes it was hard to decide if he was angry, or if he was, instead, profoundly sad.

Some days he was both.

He shook his head. It was not time for those thoughts.

No, he opened the doors to his rooms and left them for the day. He could not afford to be sucked into the trap that was skulking about his room all day. Because days turned into weeks, into months, all too easily, and he needed to be ready for anything.

But really, nothing prepares someone to see Heimdall racing down the halls of the great palace. And Loki was taken off guard as much as everyone else was.

“Loki! Hurry, to the Bifrost!”

Anything that got Heimdall worked up was a certain danger and threat, and Loki had his armor on before Heimdall could even get himself turned around and racing back towards the Bifrost.

The two of them raced towards the Bifrost, other guards stepping in behind them, providing support in advance of whatever battle was about to happen. This could be anything, could be any one. Ever since Keshaara had helped keep Midgard save from the advance of the Chitauri, things had been in an uneasy quietude. If it was about to be broken by an assault on Asgard, it would not be a surprise, but it would catch them a little off-guard. A sneak attack large enough to require a formal response would be terrifying, as it meant that all of the information they thought they had gained had been for naught, and they knew nothing of the actual machinations of those who were moving against them.

Loki did not want to be a part of another war. Not for a long while, maybe not ever. Death was no release from the torment he brought upon himself for loving someone from outside the Nine Realms.

But he could do this.

The group thundered down to the Bifrost ready for armed conflict.

The rotating wheel of the Bifrost was glowing a violent red-gold, its inner machinations spinning wildly. A terrible whine sounded out from the complex mechanisms, and Loki had his magic at his fingertips immediately, trying to figure out if what was being made to happen to the Bifrost itself was the product of some magical attack or something more mundane.

His magic dragged at the Bifrost, pulling away from him like fine spun yarns, to be wrapped and warped into the Bifrost’s spinning. It was not uncomfortable, and it did not feel like an attack, but he could not pull his magic back, no matter how he tried.

In fact, the harder he tried to gain control over his magic, the worse the feeling got, the gossamer-thin threads thickening into ropes of magic pulled out of the deepest parts of him. Loki could not even draw breath to warn off the others, even though they had no magic themselves to lose to the whirling of the machine.

He was dragged forwards as he slowly ran out of magic, and Heimdall’s great hands landing on his shoulder was the only thing that kept him from hurtling headlong into the Bifrost, and being flung goodness knew where.

The light within the Bifrost brightened until it rivaled the sun for brilliance.

Until it exceeded the sun in brilliance.

Until the entirety of Asgard was illuminated in gold for a brief moment, bright enough to cause even the staunchest of watchers to avert their eyes or risk them being burned out.

And then, as quick as the lights had come into being, they winked out. The high-pitched sound from the overloaded Bifrost cut out suddenly.

There was silence.

The guardsmen, and Loki all took a moment to blink spots out of their eyes. Loki still had a hand extended, his magic lashed to _something_ within the Bifrost. Something that made Heimdall do something Loki had never heard the man do –

“ _Fuck_ ,” the Gatekeeper hissed under his breath.

Heimdall took his hand off Loki’s shoulder, and gave him a none-too-gentle shove towards the Bifrost. Loki staggered forward, still dealing with spots of bright blue dancing in his eyes where there had been, moments before, brilliant gold.

He blinked, his hand held in front of him, shaking his head, and then finally looking towards whatever it was that had come through the Bifrost. Heimdall could have all but sacrificed him to some sort of eldritch abomination, as Loki had the most “experience” with such things from Beneath The Bifrost, but as his vision cleared…

A golden rope wrapped once around his wrist, made of his own magic. It lead forward, and he had hoped that nothing bad would have been at the other end of it.

Another hand was at the end of the rope, grasping it as it wound all the way up their arm and only stopped at their shoulder. They wore gold, orange, and charcoal grey, and they stood at the entrance of the Gateway, a smile on their face, and a bag slung over their shoulder. Grey hairs decorated their temples, and while they did not appear visibly aged other than that, the slight touch of grey made his heart stutter.

“Hello, Loki.”

His heart leapt into his chest and his blood caught fire.

She tugged on the rope, and he ran to her, uncaring of the questions or anything else. It was Keshaara, it was! He knew her at the first heartbeat in his chest that went sideways as she grinned at him, and the little check-mark shaped crinkle under her left eye sprang into being.

The rope vanished, his hand touched hers, and he kissed her without waiting for another moment. She was real, and she was in Asgard again, and –

“Your hair is _grey!_ ” he laughed against her mouth.

She punched his arm and pulled away so she could point at her temples, where the grey was sparse. Most of her hair was still the glorious auburn he had loved, but the touch of grey made her look distinguished. And different.

“I have spent millennia worried I would come back and find my husband off getting himself in some sort of awful trouble!”

He blushed straight to the tips of his toes at _husband_. An amulet of Mara, set through with emeralds hung around her neck, and the slight wear pattern on her simple tunic told him everything he needed to know about how long she had been wearing hers.

“Well no, only finding my wife near destroying the Bifrost as she tried to come home,” he snarked back, a smile firmly affixed on his face.

“In my defense, it is hard to come here without being called, dearest. I had to manage it in the only other way I really knew worked. One way trips are terribly hard to manage, and the rifts would leave all sorts of things undone back in Mundus.”

He wrapped an arm around her waist at the mention of her homelands. Last time she had to leave because of her obligations, because time flowed so differently there than it did here, because she was the First of them All and needed to –

“Loki, you look concerned.”

“When must you leave?”

His voice came out more curt than he intended, but Keshaara laughed.

“I am home for good now, Loki. It took much of me to do, but Mundus lives on without the First of Creation guiding its path. What happens now is far beyond me. I have left it behind.”

He wanted to be sad, to mourn the place that she had come from, he wanted to allow her to be sad for what it was that she had lost but –

“You’re staying?”

His heart was in his throat. Hope flushed him. Nothing else mattered but the answer to his question. He wanted to know. He wanted to hope. Against all else, for everything he had ever done, he had doubted that he would ever have a joy so pure as the one that burned through him in that moment.

“Yes. Of course. I will not let my story end in tragedy. I had the means to change it. To undo what had been done to me. I was tired of my path being chosen for me, of my choices being taken from me. I took it back.”

She twined a finger through his hair, and placed the palm of her other hand flat over the amulet he wore. Her eyes locked with his, and he was lost in the whirling impossibility of oranges and golds there.

“I choose you, Loki. Forever, and always. I choose you.”

He did not care about the tears that ran hot and joyous down his face.

Loki kissed Keshaara, and there was nothing – _nothing_ that was ever going to tear them apart again.

Asgard was bright and shining around them, but nothing gleamed brighter than the love that burned in their hearts for each other.

Keshaara kissed Loki on the edge of the Bifrost, and that, o curious ones, is the end of the tale of the Dovahkiin and Jotun Prince.

It is, perhaps, the start of the story of Keshaara and Loki, but those are tales of other times, and for other moments.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And if that did not settle it, this is, in fact, the "last chapter" of the main story for Keshaara and Loki. I still have a few supplemental bits (and smutty extras that didn't fit into the main story) that I will intermittently update this with. Let me know in the comments if there is anything you'd like to see. I'm going to go back in and edit some things from the previous chapters, starting waaaay back at the beginning. 
> 
> Thank you to all my readers who made it through this! This was a huge undertaking, much bigger than I ever thought it would be, and finishing it on the 26th of October, 2017 is...quite the feeling. 
> 
> I hope you all enjoyed the ride. I know I did. 
> 
> See you in other writings!


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